Usability Development for Collaborative Virtual Environments
Ilona Heldal · Chalmers Publication Library (Chalmers University of Technology) · 2004
Abstract Usability evaluation methods and guidelines are promising techniques to obtain higher productivity, better systems and applications, and more satisfied users. The benefits can also be translated into economic terms that make usability evaluation attractive for a wider context. However, with the appearance of new computer systems the evaluation methods and guidelines require continuous revision. Since collaborative virtual environments [11] are rather novel and extremely complex systems, there are relatively few investigations of defining new or revised methods for evaluating their usability. The goal of this work is to sketch a usability evaluation method for CVEs through examining the main processes that occur during collaboration: the social interaction (SI), the interaction via technology (IT), and the chosen techniques to reach the goals (TG). The aim of this paper is to investigate how present literatures handle the processes and build a theoretical framework to analyze them further. Moreover to discuss how the interruptions observed during one of these processes affect the other ones and the experiences in general. The focus is on multiple users’ collaboration and on using different distributed systems and applications.