Correct Foot Positioning in Virtual Reality through Visual Agility Ladder Training

Incorrect gait patterns and foot positioning can lead to serious consequences for the entire musculoskeletal system of the human body. While previous work indicates that training with an agility ladder in immersive environments such as in virtual reality (VR) is helpful for training foot positioning using visual feedback, it remains unknown how the visual feedback affects the users' gait pattern. In an experimental user study (N=20) in VR, we compared the foot positioning success rate and the users' preferences using four different visualization techniques of an agility ladder (footsteps, arrows, numbers, empty fields). The quantitative results indicate that visualization of footsteps achieved the highest accuracy in correct foot positioning without increasing the workload in VR. This is in contrast to the qualitative feedback in which most of the participants were in favor of the empty field condition. We discuss the implications and limitations for future studies using agility ladder training in VR.