  Hand-based interaction, such as using a handheld controller or making hand
gestures, has been widely adopted as the primary method for interacting with
both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays
(HMDs). In contrast, hands-free interaction avoids the need for users' hands
and although it can afford additional benefits, there has been limited research
in exploring and evaluating hands-free techniques for these HMDs. As VR HMDs
become ubiquitous, people will need to do text editing, which requires
selecting text segments. Similar to hands-free interaction, text selection is
underexplored. This research focuses on both, text selection via hands-free
interaction. Our exploration involves a user study with 24 participants to
investigate the performance, user experience, and workload of three hands-free
selection mechanisms (Dwell, Blink, Voice) to complement head-based pointing.
Results indicate that Blink outperforms Dwell and Voice in completion time.
Users' subjective feedback also shows that Blink is the preferred technique for
text selection. This work is the first to explore hands-free interaction for
text selection in VR HMDs. Our results provide a solid platform for further
research in this important area.
