Exploring Usability and User Experience of WebVR Platforms
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Short presentation of my master thesis research on "Usability and User Experience of Web VR Platforms" discussed at the WordCamp conference in Zurich, September 2019.
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Exploring Usability and User Experience of WebVR Platforms
- 1. Exploring Usability and User Experience of Immersive Web VR Platforms WordCamp Zurich 2019
- 2. About me 2019, Lugano 2018, Rotterdam 2016, Como 2019, Lugano/ Milan 2018, Zug/Zurich 2018, Lugano
- 4. Why studying Usability and UX of Web VR in Communication Management?
- 5. Web VR API • Web VR 1.1 API available to developers until July 2018 • Web XR API allow immersive experience for VR and AR devices Web VR opens the doors of immersive experiences to everyone
- 6. Usability & UX for Web VR The ancient city of Petra in JordanThe industrial port city of Bilbao in Spain
- 7. The Problem Standards and guidelines on usability and user experience of web VR platforms are missing
- 8. The Dynamics The company Design & development Final users
- 9. The Aim RQ 1: Find the main issues that threaten the usability of each web VR 360 experience. RQ 2: Find the common patterns of issues present in the web VR 360 experiences. RQ 3: Asses the end-users’ satisfaction with the web VR experiences.
- 10. Usability vs. User Experience
- 11. What is Usability? EFFECTIVENESS EFFICIENCY SATISFACTION Usability – the extent to which a system, product or service can be used by specified users to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specific content of use.” (ISO, last update 2018)
- 12. From Usability to User Experience EFFECTIVENESS EFFICIENCY SATISFACTION Usability is concerned with the effectiveness and efficiency of an interaction, whereas user experience is connected to the emotional and personal side of use (Bevan et al., 2015) USABILITY UX
- 13. User Experience User experience includes all the users' emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviors and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use.” (ISO, 2010) Usability, when interpreted from the perspective of the users' personal goals, can include the kind of perceptual and emotional aspects typically associated with user experience. Usability criteria can be used to assess aspects of user experience.” (ISO, 2010)
- 14. The Elements of UX
- 16. The Methodology
- 19. Usability Experts End-users Technical Inspection User Experience Inspection User testing VR Heuristics UEIs User Scenario Technical Inspection Heuristics User profile and scenario User Experience Indicators Technical Inspection Matrix Evaluation Matrix for UE inspection Interview questions Demographic and satisfaction questionnaire MiLE+ Evaluation Method ToolsMethods
- 20. The Process Technical Inspection Issues User Experience Inspection Issues End-Users’ Issues
- 21. The Results
- 22. Common patterns of issues (1) Clear understanding of avatar’s position at any point (2) More in-depth content for both platforms (3) The faithful viewpoints weren’t satisfactory (4) Need for balancing the information load of the interface design Usability Issues User Experience Issues (1)Better distribution and architecture of the content required (2)Clear purpose of the platforms is missing (3)Inefficiency in terms of tasks completion User Testing Issues (1)Content distribution is not sufficiently thought through (2)Images were not vivid enough (3)Poor interactivity with objects leads to less natural perception
- 24. Factors of improvement 1. Having a clear map of avatar’s position at any point easily accessible on the screen. 2. Being able to instantly access from one point to another directly from the menu. 3. Having clear indications of what can be found in any different scene through text labels or images. 4. Having clear indications of interactive objects with the help of arrows, buttons, signs, and color. 5. Having the forward and backward navigation feature always easily accessible on the screen. 6. Being able to get additional in-depth information on specific points of interest. 7. Having a balanced distribution of information without overloading with heterogenous tools like text and audio. 8. Provide a way to mark the already visited scenes in the menu or on the map. 9. Being able to explore a scene from more than one perspective through different angles or additional images.
- 25. UX & WordPress • Managerial implications UX & Blockchain • The adoption game Let’s discuss!
- 26. Thank you! let’s stay in touch https://linktr.ee/janinevideva
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon. Grüezi mitenand and vielen dank für diese Einladung. Ich freue mich heute hier zu sein. I will talk about usability and user experience of web VR platforms, but before few words about me.
- My name is Janine Videva, I’m Bulgarian and I’ve been living in the Italian part of Switzerland since I was 12 years old and for the last 5 years also in Milano. As for my background, I did my bachelor in communication sciences in Como, Italy. My MSc in Corporate Communication in the university of Lugano and an exchange program in the Erasmus University in Rotterdam where I studied Media & Business. During my studies I entered the fascinating word of startups and innovation and since then I’ve been working with three blockchain based projects. The last one of which is Barter Plaza, an ecommerce based on token economy.
- Today I will present the research I did for my master thesis, which became an academic paper in July this year. In order to give a better understanding, I would like to point out that the approach of this research is from managerial point of view, and not from a technical one.
- Why studying VR and the usability of VR in Communication Management? - one year ago, during my exchange at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam guest lecture from an important communication agency He told us about the way companies were starting to use VR for marketing and communication campaigns Underlying the way this technology is able to transmit emotions that couldn’t be transmitted with traditional one-way communication But there was a problem, the technology wasn’t widely used because it was not easily accessible Big and costly headsets, applications that had to be developed specifically for those platforms Until the release of Web VR With Web VR we have access to immersive experiences both in and outside of a headset Therefore there is no need of possessing a specific device in order to experience virtual reality online.
- - The first version of the API was available to developers until July 2018 After that it was substituted with a new updated one called Web XR API. This new version allows developers to create immersive experiences that run on VR as well as AR devices, therefore amplifying the spectrum of immersive computing (Bozorgzadeh, 2018). And of course this is an important event, because it will allow to visit an immersive web page from whatever device or browser Opening in this way the doors of immersive experiences to potentially everyone (Bozorgzadeh, 2018). - As marketing and communication managers we want to take full advantage from this
- For the experiments I chose two immersive websites connected to the tourism field
- The problem that I wanted to tackle with this research is the fact that there are no standards and guidelines on usability and user experience of web VR platforms mainly because they are such a new phenomenon And it’s important to have these standards and guidelines because once we have them it will be much easier and faster to create such kind of platforms And they will be more successful in meeting people’s needs and expectations
- Basically is about deeply understanding the dynamics of immersive web platforms from all the stakeholders which are: The company that creates the platform because they have a specific need to communicate something with their audience The developers and designers working on the project and the technology we have available to build the project And the final users with their own needs to find information and their own expectations from the technological performance of the platform
- The aim of the research was articulated around these three RQ From one side, I wanted to find the main issues of each platform, then I wanted to compare them in order too see if there are some common patterns, and at the end assess final user’s satisfaction despite the issues In general, I wanted this work to be a very first step toward the creation of a list of guidelines for usability and UX applied to Web VR in the tourism destination domain.
- Before going further with the methodology and the results, I want to spend some time exploring the definitions of usability and user experience
- The WIDELY REFERENCED DEFINITION of usability is the one of the International Organization for Standardization This definition has three main concepts which are effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction Effectiveness refers to the “accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals”. Efficiency, refers to the “resources expended by the user in order to achieve it goals Satisfaction which is described as “freedom from discomfort, and positive attitudes towards the use of the product During the last update of the definition, a strong focus on the concept of satisfaction was given, connecting it to the field of user experience
- The literature states that Usability is concerned with the effectiveness and efficiency of an interaction, whereas user experience is connected to the emotional and personal side of use Therefore, user experience focuses on perceptions and it’s all about observation. Observing the way users interact with a system, monitoring the whole cycle of interaction in order to find the underlying psychological responses and motivations of the users.
- The international organization of standardization continues with the following statements:
- To sum up all relevant elements connected to UX, I want to point out this superb diagram by James Garrett explained in his book the Elements of User Experience. To summarize it very shortly, we start with Strategy, which is the foundation of any successful UX. Strategy becomes Scope when user & business needs are translated into requirements for content & functionality We then give a Structure to the Scope by defining how the information is organized. In Skeleton, we sketch each screen of the system (i.e. using wireframes) to present the areas of interactions and structure defined in Structure Finally, In Surface, we take all the work and decisions we have made into the final visual presentation. --- The strategy element where the user needs and goals are combined with the website objective, also called business objectives. The scope element concerned to translate the strategy into functional specifications and content requirements. The structure element covers the behavior of the system in response to the user, also known as interaction design. On the other side it takes care of the arrangement of content elements in the information space, or more formally the information architecture. The skeleton element determines the visual form on the screen, the way the elements are arranged and how the user moves through the information – wireframes. This element has three components: information design, interface design, and navigation design. The surface element comprises the visual design, which is the look of the final product and the sum of all the work done.
- I really recommend this book for everyone interested, it might be the only thing you will ever need to read about UX
- For this research, I decided to use two methods and merge them in order to create one framework that would answer the specific needs of immersive platforms The first method was the Milano Lugano Evaluation Method, which was originally developed for assessing the usability of e-learning platforms This method consists of three steps: 1..2..3
- The second method was the heuristic evaluation method. Heuristics are broad rules of thumb and they are among the most commonly used guidelines in usability and user experience. You may have heard about Nielson’s 10 heuristics So after reviewing the literature on the topic I found these two sets of heuristics developed for VR Therefore I took the relevant voices of these sets and I merged them with the Milano Lugano Evaluation Method
- And this was the result There were three rounds of user tests, the first two with 4 usability experts recruited from my university, and 4 final-users The technical inspection was done based on a list of heuristics related to technical aspects The user experience inspection was done based on a list of heuristic related to UE indicators and user scenarios were developed The user testing was done through interviews after that users have experienced the immersive platforms
- The process of data collection looked a bit like this
- Among all different issues that arose, these were the common factors connected to each dimension For Usability issues … For User Experience issues … For User testing issues …
- At the end, these common patterns of issues were translated into 9 generic factors of improvement that can be applied to other web VR platforms in the tourism industry Therefore, I reached my objective of putting the first step toward the elaboration of a complete list of guidelines on usability and user experience for web VR in tourism As you can see these factors are impersonal and they can be used as a good checklist during the process of platform development
- Before opening the discussion I wanted to make a very short parenthesis on UX for WordPress since we are at the WordPress conference. And a very short parenthesis on UX for blockchain which comes from my observation of the field for more that 2 years now. UX & WordPress In terms of WordPress and in relation to the new Guttemberg editor, an user made a comment saying “Good editor helps users focus on communicating, not designing”. In my own experience with WordPress, again from managerial perspective, I’m not a developer nor a designer, but I often need to put online a temporary website, a landing page, a blog and for me is crucial to be able to doo it on my own without orchestrating the whole process of hiring a designer and the developer, writing the text, making the wireframes and support the designer and the developer in each and every step. With this I want to day how important it is to be autonomous using WordPress for a very big share of potential users which are people like me – marketing and communication people who are not developers but would be more than happy to use WordPress in their work because this will save them so much time, energy, and budget. Today there are platforms that perform better than WordPress on this regard, but of course we want our open-source to remain number 1 UX & Blockchain The Design vs. Blockchain dilemma is also very interesting because, even tough Bitcoin has been around for almost a decade, there is still not enough understanding in general, and concretely by designers. Even worse, the field has grown and developed incredibly but it has remained a niche thing accessible only for tech people which are more and more in numbers but still very technical. So if we consider these people as the main audience of the blockchain world, we can see that they are very interested and motivated to sped time, discover and learn about blockchain. But blockchain success depends on adoption, and adoption means not only a (very large) group of highly skilled and interested users but everyday people who want to do their job or purchase goods through blockchain-based applications. The big takeaway is that today, you won’t be able to stand out from your competitors without good user experience.