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No it's not an uncanney valley thing (and I can touch type, my keyboard doesn't even have symbols on it!), but it shocked me how much that little bit of periphe

No it's not an uncanney valley thing (and I can touch type, my keyboard doesn't even have symbols on it!), but it shocked me how much that little bit of peripheral vision helps with things. The game I play most with the Oculus Rift can use a keyboard and mouse (and a flight joystick!). At least a few times an hour I'll blindly find the home row on the keyboard by touch only to realize too late that I've put my left hand on fghj instead of asdf. And finding a mouse blind after taking your hand off it is really hard! Especially when trying to do it without bumping it and a accidentally clicking or moving it a lot. I think some kind of visual "rough outline" of where those devices are in reference to the headset would help a TON.

mwcampbell 8y ago
I'm surprised that it's so difficult to accurately find the home row without visual feedback. Being legally blind, I've done it my whole life without thinking, and I don't recall it being hard to learn. But I suppose it might be hard to relearn after years of using sight to find the home row. Maybe a generation of kids raised on a VR headset and a keyboard would think nothing of it.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  It may be partly the games fault, you are in a space ship with stuff around yourself that you need to physically look at to interact with (and by look at, I mean you need to point your head at it, there is no eye tracking), so i'll often take my hands off the keyboard, spin my head and use both hands on the joystick and buttons, then have to quickly find the home row again right after. But I do think a part of it is that my brain has gotten very used to having the general location of the keyboard. So for instance I know the home row (for my left hand) is middle of the keyboard vertically, and on the left side horizontally. I'll quickly find the middle vertically by touch, but then I search for the nub on the f key next and if I was only a few keys too far to the right, I'll find j instead and then instantly assume I'm at the right spot, and it's quite jarring when it's wrong! With sight, I'm able to know and move my hand toward the right hand side without feeling around more than a key in any direction for the most part.
xaqfox 8y ago
The Vive gives a rough tronlike outline (or even a transparent camera overlay) that solves this for me (a backlit keyboard helps, too, so I can turn it mostly transparent and it still stands out). The outlines appear when you go outside the standing-room boundaries and my flight chair setup is right beside that area.

mwcampbell 8y ago

I'm surprised that it's so difficult to accurately find the home row without visual feedback. Being legally blind, I've done it my whole life without thinking, and I don't recall it being hard to learn. But I suppose it might be hard to relearn after years of using sight to find the home row. Maybe a generation of kids raised on a VR headset and a keyboard would think nothing of it.

Klathmon 8y ago
It may be partly the games fault, you are in a space ship with stuff around yourself that you need to physically look at to interact with (and by look at, I mean you need to point your head at it, there is no eye tracking), so i'll often take my hands off the keyboard, spin my head and use both hands on the joystick and buttons, then have to quickly find the home row again right after. But I do think a part of it is that my brain has gotten very used to having the general location of the keyboard. So for instance I know the home row (for my left hand) is middle of the keyboard vertically, and on the left side horizontally. I'll quickly find the middle vertically by touch, but then I search for the nub on the f key next and if I was only a few keys too far to the right, I'll find j instead and then instantly assume I'm at the right spot, and it's quite jarring when it's wrong! With sight, I'm able to know and move my hand toward the right hand side without feeling around more than a key in any direction for the most part.

xaqfox 8y ago

The Vive gives a rough tronlike outline (or even a transparent camera overlay) that solves this for me (a backlit keyboard helps, too, so I can turn it mostly transparent and it still stands out). The outlines appear when you go outside the standing-room boundaries and my flight chair setup is right beside that area.