Thomesse, LucasCauquis, JulienPeillard, EtienneDominjon, LionelDuval, ThierryMoreau, GuillaumeHasegawa, ShoichiSakata, NobuchikaSundstedt, Veronica2024-11-292024-11-292024978-3-03868-245-51727-530Xhttps://doi.org/10.2312/egve.20241354https://diglib.eg.org/handle/10.2312/egve20241354As Virtual Reality (VR) applications continue to develop further, many questions persist regarding how to optimize user performance in virtual environments. Among the numerous variables that could influence performance, the mass of the props used within VR applications is particularly noteworthy. This paper thus proposes a user study to investigate the influence of the mass of a prop (a tool replica) on users' performance in a pointing task. A VR within-subject experiment was conducted, with three different weighted replicas, to collect objective and subjective data from participants. Results suggest that the mass of the prop can influence task performance in terms of error-free selection time, number of errors, and subjective perceptions such as perceived difficulty and cognitive load. Indeed, performance was significantly better when using a lighter replica than a heavier one, and subjective user-experience-related metrics were also significantly improved with a light replica. These results help pave the way for additional research on user performance within virtual environments.Attribution 4.0 International LicenseCCS Concepts: Human-centered computing → User studies; Virtual realityHuman centered computing → User studiesVirtual reality10.2312/egve.2024135410 pages