Goods-Finding and Orientation in the Elderly on 3D Virtual Store Interface: The Impact of Classification and Landmarks

• Authors: Cheng-Li Liu;Shiaw-Tsyr Uang;Chen-Hao Chang
• Venue: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Part I: New Trends
• Year: 2009

The internet 3D virtual store has received wide attention from researchers and practitioners due to the fact that it is one of the most killing applications customers can feel in a real shopping environment and possibly increase satisfaction. Though numerous studies have been performed on various issues of the internet store, some research issues relating to the spatial cognition of the elderly when immersed in a 3D virtual store still await further empirical investigation. The objective of this study was to examine how elderly users acquire spatial cognition in an on-screen virtual store. Specifically, the impact of presence and absence of goods-classification on the acquisition of route and survey knowledge was examined. Since landmarks are associated with both route and survey knowledge, we expected to observe the impact of different types of landmarks with both presence and absence of goods-classification. The experimental results indicated that the presence of goods-classification was more important in constructing route knowledge than in absence, and the time of duration of goods-finding would be shorter. However, we also found that the measuring scores of survey knowledge in presence of goods-classification were not significantly larger than in absence. In addition, the measuring scores of route knowledge were the largest and the time of duration of goods-finding was shorter while the presence of goods-classification combined with landmark in the type of alphanumeric + 2D picture + 3D object. Simultaneously, it could be found in absence of goods-classification. Therefore, while the goods-classification is absent, the landmarks could be seemed as redundant codes for goods-finding in 3D virtual store.