On Usability Testing of an HMD-based Immersive System

There is a need today to rethink while upgrading usability testing environments and methodologies for the large variety of post GUIs interactive systems. Pursuant to that need, we developed an effective environment for a Head-Mounted Display (HMD)-based virtual reality system called Osmose. As an immersive system that uses breathing and HMD as a basic for interaction with virtual design world, Osmose was difficult to test for many reasons. One of which was its style of interaction: breathing and body movements. We began setting up the testing environment about two weeks before the start of the usability testing. We learned many lessons throughout the experience, such as the importance of starting early and of conducting pre-tests.