Abstract: Relevant researches indicate that most users meet difficulties in navigation in virtual reality.
However, the current study on navigation is still insufficient. Aiming at this problem, a study on
immersive virtual riding is conducted to measure the user experience of different navigational
interfaces including the map, the directional icon and the light path. The evaluation indicators involve
efficiency, satisfaction and learnability. Subjects will ride along the paths in virtual environment to
reach the destination and the system will record the riding time and the number of collisions to
quantify different elements of user experience. The experimental result shows as follows. Firstly, the
directional icon can increase the efficiency of virtual riding to some, but not significant degree.
However, the directional icon contributes to low perception of other objects in virtual environment.
Secondly, when the users use light path to navigate, the usability and the learnability are significantly
improved. Lastly, there is little difference between the experience of map navigation and the
experience without any navigation.

Key words: virtual reality, virtual riding, navigation, navigation interface, users experience