This document summarizes research on how 3D virtual worlds influence consumer expectations in 2D e-commerce environments. The researcher conducted qualitative interviews and observations of consumers who had experience in both 3D virtual worlds and 2D e-commerce websites. Some of the findings showed that consumers found 3D environments different than 2D as they allowed looking around with camera controls. Consumers also mentioned the need to consider multiple simultaneous users and allowing checking products on websites before purchasing in-world. The researcher hopes to provide guidelines for 3D e-commerce design and discusses how e-commerce may evolve in the future to be more social, user-friendly and immersive.

1. Influence of 3D Virtual Worlds on Consumers’ Expectations in 2D E-commerce Environments Minh Q Tran, Centre for Research in Computing, The Open University, UK (m.tran@open.ac.uk)

2. Research Context E-commerce with websites (from Petre et al., 2006) (see also Shaw and Ivans, 2002)

3. Research Context E-commerce with 3D virtual worlds

4. Research Aims and Design Empirical qualitative online research What are consumers’ experiences? Semi-structured interviews and observations More semi-structured interviews Workshop or focus group I am here!

5. Findings (a sample) 3D e-commerce is different from 2D e-commerce Designing for… …3D environments “you just needed to spin around and use your camera controls to look up and up and up.” (consumer) …multiple users “I step a few steps to the left or right to clear the landing points so no one lands on my head.” (consumer) …web users “I like to check stuff at [the website] before buying, saves a lot of time from teleporting around [in the virtual world]...” (consumer) …‘use qualities’ “The fun of [virtual worlds] for me is to be in the virtual environment.” (consumer)

6. Expected Contributions Uptake by the design and research community

7. Take-away message Guidelines for 3D e-commerce are needed What will e-commerce be like in the future? Social? User-friendly? Immersive? 3D? Thanks! Minh Q .Tranm.tran@open.ac.uk Further Reading Rosson, M.B. and Carroll, J.M. Usability Engineering: Scenario-based development of human-computer interaction. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, London, UK, 2002. Petre, M., Minocha, S., and Roberts, D. Usability beyond the website: an empirically-grounded e-commerce evaluation instrument for the total customer experience. Behaviour and Information Technology 25, 2 (2006), 189-203. Shaw, C. and Ivens, J. Building Great Customer Experiences. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK 2002.