Iterative Design of an Immersive Analytics Environment Based on Frame of Reference.

Immersive analytics is an active research area that explores human-centric approaches to data exploration and analysis based on spatial arrangement and visualization of data elements in immersive 3D environments. The proliferation of extended reality (XR) technologies amplifies the need for design guidelines to help create coherent user experiences in XR environments. One of the important challenges is the accurate placement and identification of various visual elements. We explore the iterative design of the placement of visual elements and interaction with them in an immersive analytics environment based on frames of reference. The choice of a frame of reference can impact usability, ease of interaction, degree of immersion, and task performance, among other things. Our first design iteration explores the impact of visualization scale for two frames of reference: egocentric and exocentric. In response to the findings from the first study and based on performance measures such as degree of immersion, rank order, and subjective user feedback, tethered frame of reference is added to the second iteration. The second design iteration uses the collected user feedback to explore and compare the advantages and limitations of these three frames of reference. The findings are used to inform design guidelines.