Viewing Angles

Horizontal Stretch Zone

Angle: 77 to 55 degrees to either side

The horizontal stretch zone is so called because while users can see it reasonably well, they have to look noticeably to the left or right to bring the content into the center of their screen. It is still absolutely acceptable to put all sorts of things inside this zone, just know that it will require a little more work on your user’s part to see it.

Horizontal Strain Zone

**Angle: 102 to 77 degrees **

The strain zone reaches the limits of rotation for a user’s neck, and is as far as they can go without re-orienting their body. This could also be called the peripheral zone. In general, items put inside this zone will need to have additional elements to help call attention to them, they can be easily missed by people who are typically focusing in the center.

Additionally, it’s a bit uncomfortable to look at this zone in a seated experience, so try to keep the time where users must look at things past 77 degrees or so to a minimum.

Horizontal Curiosity Zone

Angle: Anything past 102 degrees to either side

The horizontal curiosity zone denotes the area behind the user. People won’t ever see the content in this zone unless they physically turn around to get a better angle on it. Users who are curious, or checking out the scene, will often look behind themselves, but don’t count on it! If you need to call attention to something behind someone in a VR experience, make sure to provide an indicator that they must turn around.

In seated experiences, it is generally a good idea to avoid putting important or interactable content in the curiosity zone. Again, depending on your game mechanic, a standing experience could integrate items there, but just like all the other zones, they are relative to the direction the player is facing - be careful not to keep placing things behind users or they will end up spinning in circles!

Vertical Viewing Zones

Angle: 60 degrees above, 40 degrees below, with a comfortable vertical zone between 20 degrees up, and 12 degrees down.

There are also a few angles for vertical looking above and beneath. In general, humans aren’t very good at noticing things above them, and you will generally want to keep your VR content relatively level with the player, with the most comfortable and noticeable angles between 20 degrees above the horizon, and 12 degrees below it.

If you decide to deviate from this, make sure that it is a deliberate design decision and remember that you may have to do extra work to get your users to notice content which is high above them, or right at their feet.

It can be useful to place objects above or beneath a player however, especially if we want to have persistent UI elements that don’t need to be visible at all times. Above the head, or at the feet, are both decent places to put interface items like menus, back buttons, and more.

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