Interaction-Rendering Fidelity Balance in Professional Virtual Reality: A Design-Oriented Empirical Study of Conditional Transferability Across Task Domains

This thesis investigates the design and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems, with the goal of understanding how different dimensions of system fidelity influence user experience, task understanding, and engagement in professional contexts. The research adopts a design-oriented perspective that explicitly distinguishes between rendering fidelity and action fidelity and examines the performance of their balance through case studies in industry and medicine, as test beds for transferability and multidisciplinary validity. By employing a progressive research strategy, the investigation begins with a foundational study comparing visual rendering-focused and interaction-focused VR setups and then advances through a series of case studies in medical and industrial domains. This progression enables the effects of a fixed action-rendering fidelity configuration to be examined under varying task demands and contextual constraints, to assess the robustness and conditional transferability of fidelity-balance principles across professional domains. A central contribution of this research is the empirical validation of fidelity balance as a viable design strategy for professional VR systems. The results demonstrate that, under controlled conditions, interaction-focused fidelity can sustain user understanding, cognitive engagement, and task effectiveness even in the presence of limited visual realism. These findings challenge the assumption that increasing visual realism is the primary driver of effectiveness in virtual environments. The proposed design approach is evaluated through multiple empirical studies, beginning with a baseline experimental comparison and extending to domain-specific deployments in medical risk assessment and human–robot interaction training. Cross-case analysis highlights both consistent effects and domain-dependent variations, clarifying when fidelity-balance principles generalize and when contextual adaptation becomes necessary. By integrating conceptual framing, empirical validation, and cross-domain analysis, this thesis advances the understanding of how professional VR systems can be designed beyond considering realism as broad construct. The results contribute design-oriented evidence toward the development of transferable and robust VR solutions that prioritize meaningful interaction and task alignment, supporting their effective deployment in real-world professional environments.