Challenges and Opportunities for Software Testing in Virtual Reality Application Development

Qing Liu, Gustavo Alves, Jian Zhao

Keywords: Virtual Reality, end-user development, AR/VR Development, software testing, challenges

Abstract: Testing is a core process for the development of Virtual Reality (VR) software, which could ensure the delivery of high-quality VR products and experiences. As VR applications have become more popular in different fields, more challenges and difficulties have been raised during the testing phase. However, few studies have explored the challenges of software testing in VR development in detail. This paper aims to fill in the gap through a qualitative interview study composed of 14 professional VR developers and a survey study with 33 additional participants. As a result, we derived 10 key challenges that are often confronted by VR developers during software testing. Our study also sheds light on potential design directions for VR development tools based on the identified challenges and needs of the VR developers to alleviate existing issues in testing.

Track: HCI/visualization

Revision: No

Revision Reviewers: No opinion

Summary Of Changes:

Previous revisions:

- Add information: interview conducted remotely, ethics approval of the interview study
- Get rid of Section 2.1.
- Put Future Directions as an individual section.
- Add details of the participant recruiting procedure and ethics.
- Fix typos.

Further revisions:
- Sort the bars in Fig 1 and Fig 2
- Add discussion of challenges regarding the collaboration of different VR development tools and the frequent updates.