Integrating Design Psychology in VR Scenarios to Improve Virtual Reality Experiences

The application of virtual reality (VR) across various sectors is becoming more widespread, playing a pivotal role in the advancement of the metaverse. However, the prevalence of VR sickness undermines user experiences, indicating a pressing need for optimization. Current research primarily focuses on enhancing VR hardware and investigating the relationship between human factors and VR sickness, overlooking the critical aspect of VR content. This article proposes design standards for VR scenarios, grounded in established design psychology theories, and develops six sets of VR scenarios to examine how VR content influences user experiences. We enlisted 150 college students suffering from VR sickness to participate in a study. The findings reveal that incorporating design psychology principles into VR scenarios beneficially affects participants' physiological and emotional responses. Nonetheless, the proposed design standards require further refinement, and future research is needed to validate their effectiveness.