Usability Engineering of Virtual Environments

Abstract

To this end, we present several usability engineering methods, mostly adapted from GUI development, that have been successfully applied to VE development. These methods include user task analysis, expert guidelines-based evaluation (also sometimes called heuristic evaluation or usability inspection), and formative usability evaluation. Further, we postulate that — like GUI development — there is no single method for VE usability engineering, and we address how each of these methodologies supports focused, specialized design, measurement, management, and assessment techniques such as those presented in other chapters of this Handbook {NOTE TO EDITOR: these will be listed as appropriate as we see how other chapters are completed}. We include our experiences with usability engineering of three different VEs: one was a desktop -based new interaction technique, one was a CAVE -based medical imaging system, and one was a Responsive Workbench-based navigation application. We also discuss summative evaluation, even though it is not a usability engineering method per se. We present summative evaluation because it is an important aspect of making comparative assessments of VEs from a user's perspective.