A toolset supported approach for designing and testing virtual environment interaction techniques

✍ Scribed by JAMES S. WILLANS; MICHAEL D. HARRISON

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 404 KB
• Volume: 55
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1071-5819
• DOI: 10.1006/ijhc.2001.0474

✦ Synopsis

Usability problems associated with virtual environments are a serious obstacle to their successful development. One source of these problems is that virtual environment toolkits provide only a small number of prede"ned interaction techniques that are expected to be used regardless of context, hence developers are not encouraged to consider interaction. In addition, there are no generally accepted development methodologies for virtual environments. Therefore, even when developers do consider interaction, it is likely to be in an ad hoc fashion driven by technology rather than requirements. If virtual environments are to be useful in a wider context, it is important to provide developers with methods (and tools to support the methods) by which interaction techniques can be systematically designed, tested and re"ned.

In this paper we present the Marigold toolset which supports such a development process. The process begins with a visual speci"cation of the technique being designed. This is requirements centred because it abstracts from implementation issues. Using the toolset, this speci"cation is re"ned to a prototype implementation so that the technique can be explored in the context of the other elements of the environment. In this way, the developer can verify the technique against requirements in both the speci"cation and prototype. Additionally, because the speci"cation is readily understandable, users can be involved at both stages of the process.