An in-game dashboard is a UI display that is integrated into the game itself. A typical scenario is an automobile or a space ship, where you are seated in a cockpit. At waist level (desk level) is a panel with a set of controls, gauges, information displays, and so on. Dashboards generally feel more natural in a seated VR experience.
A few pages back, we discussed windshield HUDs. Dashboards are pretty much the same thing. One difference is that the dashboard may be more obviously a part of the level environment and not simply an auxiliary information display or a menu.
In fact, dashboards can be a very effective mechanism to control VR motion sickness. Researchers have found that when a VR user has a better sense of being grounded and has a consistent horizon line in view, he's much less likely to experience nausea while moving around a virtual space. The opposite being a floating one-dimensional eyeball with no sense of self or grounding, which is asking...