User-Centered Design and Evaluation of a Real-Time Battlefield Visualization Virtual Environment
Deborah Hix, J. Edward Swan II, Joseph L. Gabbard, Mike McGee, Jim Durbin, and Tony King. User-Centered Design and Evaluation of a Real-Time Battlefield Visualization Virtual Environment. In Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality '99, pp. 96–103, IEEE Computer Society Press, March 1999.
Winner of the "Best Paper" award at IEEE Virtual Reality '99.
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Abstract
The ever-increasing power of computers and hardware rendering systems has, to date, primarily motivated the creation of visually rich and perceptually realistic virtual environment (VE) applications. Comparatively very little effort has been expended on the user interaction components of VEs. As a result, VE user interfaces are often poorly designed and are rarely evaluated with users. Although usability engineering is a newly emerging facet of VE development, user-centered design and usability evaluation in VEs as a practice still lags far behind what is needed. This paper presents a structured, iterative approach for the user-centered design and evaluation of VE user interaction. This approach consists of the iterative use of expert heuristic evaluation, followed by formative usability evaluation, followed by summative evaluation. We describe our application of this approach to a real-world VE for battlefield visualization, describe the resulting series of design iterations, and present evidence that this approach provides a cost-effective strategy for assessing and iteratively improving user interaction design in VEs. This paper is among the first to report applying an iterative, structured, user-centered design and evaluation approach to VE user interaction design.
Additional Information
Acceptance rate: 30% (33 out of 100), Award rate: 3% (1 out of 33)
BibTeX
@InProceedings{IEEEVR99-ucde,
author = {Deborah Hix and J. Edward {Swan~II} and Joseph L. Gabbard and
Mike McGee and Jim Durbin and Tony King},
title = {User-Centered Design and Evaluation of a Real-Time Battlefield
Visualization Virtual Environment},
booktitle = {Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality '99},
location = {Houston, Texas, USA},
date = {March 13--17},
month = {March},
year = 1999,
publisher = {IEEE Computer Society Press},
pages = {96--103},
wwwnote = {<b>Winner of the "Best Paper" award at IEEE Virtual Reality '99</b>.},
abstract = {
The ever-increasing power of computers and hardware rendering systems has, to
date, primarily motivated the creation of visually rich and perceptually
realistic virtual environment (VE) applications. Comparatively very little
effort has been expended on the user interaction components of VEs. As a
result, VE user interfaces are often poorly designed and are rarely evaluated
with users. Although usability engineering is a newly emerging facet of VE
development, user-centered design and usability evaluation in VEs as a practice
still lags far behind what is needed.
This paper presents a structured, iterative approach for the user-centered
design and evaluation of VE user interaction. This approach consists of the
iterative use of expert heuristic evaluation, followed by formative usability
evaluation, followed by summative evaluation. We describe our application of
this approach to a real-world VE for battlefield visualization, describe the
resulting series of design iterations, and present evidence that this approach
provides a cost-effective strategy for assessing and iteratively improving user
interaction design in VEs. This paper is among the first to report applying an
iterative, structured, user-centered design and evaluation approach to VE user
interaction design.
},
}