Gaze-Based Menu Navigation in Virtual Reality: A Comparative Study of Layouts and Interaction Techniques

This repository accompanies the paper "Gaze-Based Menu Navigation in Virtual Reality: A Comparative Study of Layouts and Interaction Techniques", presented at 20th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT 2025).

Overview

This Unity project investigates gaze-based menu navigation in virtual reality, comparing different menu layouts (e.g., Pie and List menus) and interaction techniques (e.g., dwelling, border-crossing, controller, and multimodal input). The project builds on previous research and utilizes both original and adapted assets.

Dependencies

The project requires these Unity packages:

• OpenXR Plugin
• XR Interaction Toolkit

Several assets are adapted from Kim et al. 2022.

Folder Structure

• UserStudy/: Contains evaluation scripts and a dedicated README with further details.
• Assets/IML/Gaze/Scripts/: Scripts for the Gaze Accuracy Grid:
  • GazeAccuracy.cs: Implements gaze grid logic, gaze and menu hit event tracking, and related data structures.
  • StartGazeAccTest.cs: Handles transitions between scene kiosks and the gaze accuracy grid.
  • TrackEyePosScript.cs: Tracks gaze activity and menu hit events across different menu levels.
• Assets/Menus/: Menu implementations, prefabs, and utility scripts:
  • Editor/: Editor extensions for transform visualization of nested GameObjects.
  • Lattice/: Pie menus and logic for menu expansion and hover effects.
  • PanelMenu/: List menu logic, analogous in structure to Pie menus.
  • SUS/: System Usability Scale (SUS) integrated panel and logic.
• Assets/DwellinteractionScript.cs: Dwell-based progress bar logic.
• Assets/JsonLogger.cs: Data structures and serialization routines for user study logging.
• Assets/TaskManager.cs: Core study manager, handles menu layout data and orchestrates study flow, including utility functions.
• Assets/LookAtCameraScript.cs: Rotates list menus to face the user.
• Assets/RotateRadialToCameraScript.cs: Rotates pie menus towards the user.

How to Run

1. Clone the repository and open it in Unity.
2. Ensure the required dependencies are installed (see above).
3. Refer to the README in UserStudy/ for instructions on evaluating the user studies.

Citation

If you use this codebase in your research, please cite the following:

@inproceedings{10.1145/3677386.3688887,
	author = {Kop\'{a}csi, L\'{a}szl\'{o} and Klimenko, Albert and Barz, Michael and Sonntag, Daniel},
	title = {Exploring Gaze-Based Menu Navigation in Virtual Environments},
	year = {2024},
	isbn = {9798400710889},
	publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
	address = {New York, NY, USA},
	url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3677386.3688887},
	doi = {10.1145/3677386.3688887},
	abstract = {With the integration of eye tracking technologies in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, gaze-based interactions have opened up new possibilities for user interface design, including menu navigation. Prior research in gaze-based menu navigation in VR has predominantly focused on pie menus, yet recent studies indicate a user preference for list layouts. However, the comparison of gaze-based interactions on list menus is lacking in the literature. This work aims to fill this gap by exploring the viability of list menus for multi-level gaze-based menu navigation in VR and evaluating the efficiency of various gaze-based interactions, such as dwelling and border-crossing, against traditional controller navigation and multi-modal interaction using gaze and button press.},
	booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction},
	articleno = {40},
	numpages = {2},
	keywords = {Extended Reality (XR), Eye Tracking, Gaze-based Interaction, Menu Navigation},
	location = {Trier, Germany},
	series = {SUI '24}
}

Follow-up Work

Reusable assets from this work will be available at: https://github.com/DFKI-Interactive-Machine-Learning/com.dfki-iml.xr-gaze-interaction-toolkit