Paradiegetic user interfaces: balancing immersion and information clarity in virtual reality

Interface design for virtual reality faces a persistent trade-off. Diegetic interfaces embedded in the game world preserve immersion but can compromise the visibility and clarity of critical information, whereas non-diegetic overlays communicate clearly at the cost of immersion. This study formalises a middle ground: the paradiegetic user interface (PD-UI), which features narratively neutral informational overlays anchored in a user-centric space, organised in a five-dimensional design space. A PD-UI was implemented in a commercial VR first-person shooter and compared with diegetic and non-diegetic baselines in a within-subjects experiment (N = 37). The PD-UI as implemented received significantly higher UI Quality ratings than both baselines (medium-to-large effects), with no significant difference detected in the pragmatic usability composite, and post-session interviews described fewer perceived occlusion-related disruptions and better continuity of attention. The findings provide initial evidence for the perceived interface quality of the paradiegetic implementation and motivate further tests of its intended balance between immersion and information clarity.