Immersive virtual environments (VEs) have the potential to provide novel cost effective ways for evaluating not only new\nenvironments and usability scenarios, but also potential user experiences. To achieve this, VEs must be adequately realistic.The level\nof perceived authenticity can be ascertained by measuring the levels of immersion people experience in their VE interactions. In this\npaper the degree of authenticity is measured via an authenticity index in relation to three different immersive virtual environment\ndevices. These devices include (1) a headband, (2) 3D glasses, and (3) a head-mounted display (HMD). A quick scale for measuring\nimmersion, feeling of control, and simulator sickness was developed and tested. The HMD proved to be the most immersive device,\nalthough the headband was demonstrated as being a more stable environment causing the least simulator sickness. The results have\ndesign implication as they provide insight into specific factors which make experience in a VE seem more authentic to users. The\npaper emphasizes that, in addition to the quality of the VE, focus needs to be placed on ergonomic factors such as the weight of the\ndevices, as the se may compromise the quality of results obtained when examining studying human-technology interaction in a VE.
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