The Negative Effect on Postural Ergonomics of Non-Sedentary Workplace Desks in Virtual Reality

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is gaining increasing importance in an increasing number of places in daily life, particularly when gaming or working. Moreover, immersive activities are often performed while standing at physical desks and current devices can even register the physical properties of a virtual workplace to match the virtual content with haptics in the real world in front of the user. However, little is known about the effects of VR on how users perceive and ergonomically adapt to workplace desks when wearing a head-mounted display (HMD). In this user study, we conducted an experiment with 19 participants to investigate the effects of non-sedentary VR on the postural risk level, workload, and preferred desk height. The results indicate that being in VR negatively influences objective and subjective measures of ergonomics and increases postural risk while the preferred desk height remained unaffected. We found evidence that wearing the HMD negatively affects the neck posture at non-sedentary workplace desks. We contribute with our findings and highlight the need for improving the field-of-view and weight of HMDs for lower postural risk levels at workplace desks in non-seated VR.