Usability of virtual worlds

Authors:
Haind Lu;Tobias Brockmann;Stefan Stieglitz
Affiliations:
Department for Information Systems, University of Muenster, Muenster, Germany;Department for Information Systems, University of Muenster, Muenster, Germany;Department for Information Systems, University of Muenster, Muenster, Germany
Venue:
DUXU'13 Proceedings of the Second international conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability: design philosophy, methods, and tools - Volume Part I
Year:
2013

Citing 11
Cited 0

The Usability Engineering Life Cycle

Computer
Refining the test phase of usability evaluation: how many subjects is enough?

Human Factors - Special issue: measurement in human factors
Usability inspection methods

CHI '94 Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Usability Testing and Research

Usability Testing and Research
Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games

Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games
Designing Virtual Worlds

Designing Virtual Worlds
On the usability and likeability of virtual reality games for education: The case of VR-ENGAGE

Computers & Education
Virtual worlds - past, present, and future: New directions in social computing

Decision Support Systems
Learning Arrangements in Virtual Worlds

HICSS '10 Proceedings of the 2010 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students' use of digital technologies

Computers & Education
Virtual Worlds as Environments for Virtual Customer Integration

HICSS '12 Proceedings of the 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

In recent years virtual worlds left their origins driven by new technologies. As a consequence 3D-based environments moved into business related domains and are used e.g. to support virtual meetings or product presentations. However, enterprises have to consider that a large share of companies' employees still fits to the definition of so-called digital immigrants. While younger employees are familiar with the usage of 3D-based environments, navigating in virtual rooms might be challenging for digital immigrants. This could limit the usage of virtual worlds for business related contexts. We therefore conducted usability tests with digital immigrants in virtual worlds and analyzed their experiences. Our results show that in fact digital immigrants face problems when using virtual worlds. Based upon our study we discuss how to improve the usability of virtual worlds for this group of users.