VR That Doesn’t Make You Sick: Understanding & Mitigating Cybersickness

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By bernhard riecke & behrang keshavarz

Cybersickness remains a per­sis­tent chal­lenge in VR/XR, hin­der­ing user expe­ri­ence and adop­tion. This course bridges research and indus­try, equip­ping devel­op­ers, design­ers, and researchers with science-backed strate­gies to mit­i­gate cyber­sick­ness through opti­mized loco­mo­tion, inter­ac­tion, and envi­ron­ment design. Engage with case stud­ies and activ­i­ties to create more com­fort­able, acces­si­ble VR/XR experiences.

1.5 hour course to be pre­sented at Siggraph 2025 in Vancouver, Canada

Time: Sunday, 10 August 2025 2:00pm — 3:30pm PDT
Location: West Building, Rooms 205–207

for more infos, see Siggraph web­site https://s2025.conference-schedule.org/presentation/?id=gensub_239&sess=sess192

Course abstract

Cybersickness remains a per­sis­tent chal­lenge in vir­tual and extended real­ity (VR/XR), affect­ing user com­fort, adop­tion, and long-term engage­ment. This course pro­vides devel­op­ers, design­ers, and researchers with science-backed strate­gies for mit­i­gat­ing cyber­sick­ness in immer­sive envi­ron­ments. Attendees will explore the­o­ret­i­cal foun­da­tions, prac­ti­cal mit­i­ga­tion tech­niques, and real-world case stud­ies, includ­ing loco­mo­tion strate­gies such as HyperJump, leaning-based nav­i­ga­tion, and UI/scene opti­miza­tions. Through inter­ac­tive dis­cus­sions, live polling, and col­lab­o­ra­tive exer­cises, atten­dees will gain a struc­tured under­stand­ing of cyber­sick­ness causes, mea­sure­ment, and pre­ven­tion. The ses­sion will con­clude with a struc­tured “Do’s \& Don’ts” guide for imme­di­ate appli­ca­tion in VR/XR projects. This course ensures atten­dees leave with action­able strate­gies to enhance XR usabil­ity.
Ideal for VR/XR devel­op­ers, UX design­ers, and researchers, this course trans­lates sci­en­tific insights into prac­ti­cal solu­tions, equip­ping atten­dees with the knowl­edge and tools to iden­tify, assess, and mit­i­gate cyber­sick­ness, thereby enhanc­ing user com­fort, engage­ment, and adop­tion in their XR projects.

Course Proceedings

Riecke, B. E., & Keshavarz, B. (2025). VR That Doesn’t Make You Sick: Understanding & Mitigating Cybersickness. ACM SIGGRAPH Courses ’25, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1145/3721241.3733992

The VR Comfort Stack: A Hierarchical Framework for a Systemic Approach to Cybersickness Mitigation

In the process of craft­ing my Siggraph course I started devel­op­ing this VR Comfort Stack Framework, see below for abstract and a preprint of the draft framework

AbstractVR_comfort_stack_pyramid

Despite decades of research, cyber­sick­ness remains a sig­nif­i­cant bar­rier to the wide­spread adop­tion of Virtual Reality (VR). Existing mit­i­ga­tion guide­lines are often frag­mented, siloed within spe­cific stake­holder domains (e.g., user, devel­oper, or hard­ware man­u­fac­turer), and lack a uni­fy­ing struc­ture. This frag­men­ta­tion has con­tributed to mis­at­trib­uted respon­si­bil­ity for user dis­com­fort. To address this crit­i­cal gap, we intro­duce the VR Comfort Stack, a novel hier­ar­chi­cal frame­work that reframes cyber­sick­ness mit­i­ga­tion as a sys­temic chal­lenge requir­ing shared respon­si­bil­ity. The frame­work con­sists of five inter­de­pen­dent layers, orga­nized around key prin­ci­ples includ­ing a cen­tral con­cept of pre­dic­tive fidelity, where cyber­sick­ness is under­stood as a fail­ure of the system to match the user’s sen­sory pre­dic­tions. By assign­ing clear, syn­er­gis­tic guide­lines to users, con­tent cre­ators, providers, hard­ware man­u­fac­tur­ers, and researchers at each layer, the Comfort Stack pro­vides a uni­fied tool for edu­ca­tion, design, and future research. This pre­lim­i­nary frame­work is pre­sented to invite com­mu­nity feed­back and to foster a more holis­tic, sys­temic, and effec­tive approach to improv­ing VR com­fort and acces­si­bil­ity for all.

 

Updated slides and preview or the VR Comfort Stack Draft Framework I presented at Siggraph 2025

Riecke, B. E. (2025). The VR Comfort Stack: A Hierarchical Framework for a Systemic Approach to Cybersickness Mitigation. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16755903

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VR Sickness benchmark

http://ispace.iat.sfu.ca/project/vr-sickness-benchmark/

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