I'm developing a 360 degree VR video player for JauntVR, and I've just implemented an experimental "roll-to-yaw" interface based on using the "head bobble" gesture [1] (roll) for turning around (yaw). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It seems to work ok, but I haven't yet done much user testing yet to see if it makes you puke or gives you a sore neck. It's so obvious I wouldn't think of patenting it, and I'd much rather share the idea and benefit from other people's experience.

The jury is still out on whether it sucks or not, and you really have to try it to know what it's like, but I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who's seen or tried anything like that, wants to hack it up and try it themselves, or even links to research, thought experiments or rules of thumb anyone has which might apply.

It's very simple: roll your head to the right to yaw to the right, roll your head to the left to yaw to the left. Of course there is a neutral "dead zone" so you have to roll enough past the threshold to start turning, and the speed you turn ramps up as you roll even more. The ramp can plateau at a maximum speed to keep you from spinning too fast. The range of the dead zone and the slope and plateau of the ramp are configurable parameters, which need to be tuned.

Head roll or bobble isn't a common gesture in my culture, so I thought it would be good to use for turning around, since you wouldn't do it accidentally very often (once it's properly tuned), and it's easily reversible. However the head bobble is more common and has meaning in Indian culture! [2] So I'd like to hear from anyone who bobbles their head on a regular basis!

As well as tuning the ramp parameters, it is possible to filter and debounce the gesture so you didn't turn around accidentally when you bobbled your head expressively.

The roll-to-yaw interface requires more tuning and experimentation of course, but since rolling your head is a much less common gesture than pitching up and down and yawing left and right, it seems useful to use it for turning (yaw) around.

I think it's important to have a way to turn your virtual body around without actually turning your physical body, so you can still comfortably view the entire 360 degrees of immersive video while sitting down or attached to the computer by wires.

Here's one of my favorite papers that has some great ideas about pragmatic issues which apply to all kinds of user interfaces: Buxton, W. (1983). Lexical and Pragmatic Considerations of Input Structures. Computer Graphics, 17 (1), 31-37. [3]

"PRAGMATICS

In examining the two studies discussed above, one quickly recognizes that the effect of the pragmatic level on the user interface, and therefore on the user model, is given very little attention. Moran, for example, points out that the physical component exists and that it is important, but does not discuss it further. Foley and Van Dam bury these issues within the lexical level. Our main thesis is that since the primary level of contact with an interactive system is at the level of pragmatics, this level has one of the strongest effects on the user's perception of the system. Consequently, the models which we adopt in order to specify, design, implement, compare and evaluate interactive systems must be sufficiently rich to capture and communicate the system's properties at this level. This is clearly not the case with most models, and this should be cause for concern. To illustrate this, let us examine a few case studies which relate the effect of pragmatics to:
1) pencil-and-paper tests of query languages
2) ease of use with respect to action language grammars
3) device independence"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_bobble

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj56IPJOqWE

[3] http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical.html