Ego vs. Exo and Active vs. Passive: Investigating the Individual and Combined Effects of Viewpoint and Navigation on Spatial Immersion and Understanding in Immersive Storytelling

TL;DR

This paper investigates how viewpoint (egocentric vs exocentric) and navigation (active vs passive) affect spatial immersion and understanding in immersive storytelling. Through a formative design phase, adaptation of four web-based stories, and a within-subject VR study (N=24), it identifies that navigation predominantly drives immersion while viewpoint more strongly influences memorability; Ego+Active and Exo+Passive emerge as preferred configurations. The findings offer practical guidelines for VR journalism and education, suggesting flexible, combined viewpoint/navigation strategies to balance content comprehension and experiential engagement. Overall, the work delineates a foundational design space for immersive storytelling and highlights opportunities for dynamic viewpoint transitions and hybrid interaction models.

Abstract

Visual storytelling combines visuals and narratives to communicate important insights. While web-based visual storytelling is well-established, leveraging the next generation of digital technologies for visual storytelling, specifically immersive technologies, remains underexplored. We investigated the impact of the story viewpoint (from the audience's perspective) and navigation (when progressing through the story) on spatial immersion and understanding. First, we collected web-based 3D stories and elicited design considerations from three VR developers. We then adapted four selected web-based stories to an immersive format. Finally, we conducted a user study (N=24) to examine egocentric and exocentric viewpoints, active and passive navigation, and the combinations they form. Our results indicated significantly higher preferences for egocentric+active (higher agency and engagement) and exocentric+passive (higher focus on content). We also found a marginal significance of viewpoints on story understanding and a strong significance of navigation on spatial immersion.

Figures (13)

• Figure 1: Overall Procedure of This Work. We started by a formative study analyzing the web-based stories in terms of their viewpoint and navigation designs. It elicited some design considerations, which we used to design and implemented four story cases. We finally investigated the effects of viewpoints and navigations on 24 participants.
• Figure 2: Formative Study Flow Diagram page2021prisma. We first collected dynamic visual stories from major news outlets. We then filtered out those without significant 3D spatial informations. With the remaining VR adaptable stories, we elicited four design considerations (DCs) for our later adaptations.
• Figure 3: Four Major Story Components and Corresponding Available Options.
• Figure 4: Illustration of Case 1. The main visual element is a Manhattan landscape with 3D buildings (N1). The story narratives and the text guidance for navigation are in a text panel above the main visual element (N2). A transparent copy of the main visual element periodically animates to a designated perspective, visualizing the text guidance (N3). Audiences follow the guidance and the story proceeds to the next paragraphs (N4)
• Figure 5: Illustration of Case 2. The main visual element of the story is a globe with animated current circulation in Atlantic Ocean (A1). The story panel with translucent background is fixed around the globe surface and centered between the audiences' view and the globe centroid (A1). Audiences actively navigate the story by grabbing the globe and rotating to the designated area mentioned in narratives (A2, A4), following the text and visual guidance (A1, A3).