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Measuring simulator sickness in VR: a guide for UX researchers

Understand and mitigate the impact of simulator sickness on VR users.

Melissa Schmitz
UX Collective
11 min readDec 31, 2022
A grayscale side view of a bearded man with an image of someone walking across his head
Photo by Norbert Kowalczyk on Unsplash

Given that up to 1 in 3 people [1, 2] experience some type of motion sickness, it’s highly likely that either you or someone you know has felt a bit queasy after using a virtual reality (VR) simulator for the first time. And this includes your users.

Although simulator sickness (SS) can occur with any variety of VR experiences, moving experiences such as high-speed rollercoasters and driving simulators tend to be particularly susceptible to this phenomenon, especially in the absence of haptic feedback. Your eyes receive input that you are moving, but the rest of your body cannot feel that motion. This dissonance leads your body to the same physiological response as if you were poisoned, commonly referred to as the Sensory Conflict Theory.

Unfortunately, determining ahead of time which individuals are most likely to experience SS is still a subject of research and is therefore not easy to predict. However, for those researching solutions to improve their users’ experience (UX) and feel more comfortable in VR, knowing how to measure the signs is a good first step to refining recommendations for your various user groups.

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Melissa Schmitz

Research engineer in emerging tech (prototyping XR, UX, autonomy). ✦ http://linktr.ee/melissa_xr

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