The control of the viewpoint is the same for both the Fixed and the Monitor conditions. However, whereas in the Monitor condition viewers look at a monitor, participants in the Fixed condition will be looking through the stereoscopic eyephones. Similarly, both the Fixed and the Tracked condition use the eyephones. However, in the Tracked condition, participants control their viewpoint with the head tracking device. Design of Experiment.
All participants experience all conditions in a random order.
The advantage of such an approach is that it does not require very many subjects to generate statistically significant results because the variation due to the subjects is taken out of the error term. Another advantage is that it compares the predictability of the simulations directly. Those participants who view the real setting after having experienced it in the simulation condition can immediately confirm the differences between the two environments. Unfortunately, there are two major drawbacks to the complete random design. The first is one of inconvenience.