As Extended Reality (XR) glasses transition from niche devices towards compact, comfortable, everyday wearables, they are increasingly being used while people are walking, running, cycling, kayaking, or otherwise physically moving. This shift opens up exciting possibilities for new forms of interaction and mobile computing, but it also introduces fundamental challenges that are not present when XR users are stationary. Understanding how physical movement affects XR interaction will therefore be critical for designing effective, safe, and socially appropriate experiences for the next generation of XR glasses.

Physical movement affects essentially every aspect of XR interaction. Body and head motion can influence the perception and readability of virtual information, while movement can reduce the accuracy of gaze-, hand-, and head-based input. At the same time, interacting with digital information while moving requires users to divide their attention between the information, their physical activity, and their surrounding environment, raising important questions around safety and situational awareness. Movement also introduces new challenges for visualization, non-visual interaction, social interaction, privacy, and security. Although individual aspects of these challenges have been studied, relevant research remains fragmented across disciplines and application domains. We therefore lack a coherent understanding of XR interaction as a distinct research problem shaped by physical movement.

The goal of this Dagstuhl Seminar is to bring together researchers from HCI, XR, wearable computing, computer graphics, social and cognitive sciences, and related fields to identify and formulate the key research challenges of XR interaction in motion. We aim to (i) build an initial research community around this emerging topic, (ii) develop a collection of overarching research challenges that can guide future investigations, and (iii) establish concrete next steps for advancing the field, including a joint research publication and a series of follow-up workshops at XR and HCI-related conferences.

By articulating these key research challenges and creating a multi-disciplinary community, we aim to establish XR interaction during physical movement as a distinct research direction within the multidisciplinary field of XR and to define an initial research agenda that positions physical movement not as a constraint on interaction, but rather as a process to be understood and supported.

Creative Commons BY 4.0

Pavel Manakhov, Stefanie Zollmann, Raimund Dachselt, and Mark Billinghurst