Representing the semantics of virtual spaces

Chen, C.; Lee, Thomas; Cole, Jonathan; Chennawasin, Chiladda

doi:10.1109/93.771373

Cited by 31 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Chen and Czerwinski (1997) studied the relationship between individual differences and information exploration in a virtual world organized on the basis of visualized semantic relationships. The virtual environment for the studies was an early version of the StarWalker software (Chen & Czerwinski, 1997;Chen, Thomas, Cole, & Chennawasin, 1999). The underlying information domain was a collection of 169 papers from the ACM CHI conferences of 1995, 1996, and 1997, visualized as a network.…”

Section: Spatial Abilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in exploration using desktop VR

Modjeska¹,

Chignell²

2003

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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With advances in computer graphics, a number of innovative approaches to information visualization have been developed (e.g., Card et al, 1991). Some of these approaches create a mapping between information and corresponding structure in a virtual world. The resulting virtual worlds can be fully three dimensional (3D) or they can be implemented as a series of 2D birds-eye "snapshots" that are traversed as if they were in 3D, using operations such as panning and zooming interactively (2.5D). This paper reports a study that contrasted 3D and 2.5D performance for people with differing levels of spatial and structure learning ability. Four data collection methods were employed: search task scoring; subjective questionnaires; navigational activity logging and analysis; and administration of tests for spatial and structure-learning abilities. Analysis of the results revealed statistically significant effects of user abilities, and information environment designs. Overall, this research did not find a performance advantage for using a 3D rather than a 2.5D virtual world. In addition, users in the lowest quartile of spatial ability had significantly lower search performance in the 3D environment. The findings suggest that individual differences in traits such as spatial ability may be important in determining the usability and acceptability of 3D environments. IntroductionAs innovations in user interface design make their way to desktop computing and various information appliances, questions arise as to how well people can adapt to these innovations. Will certain classes or types of people have a disadvantage if newer interfaces place increasing demands or emphasis on particular human assets or capabilities? This type of technology-mediated discrimination has occurred in the past. For instance, the transition from the command line to the graphical user interface was a boon for most users, but was a step backwards for people with visual disabilities who used screen readers (i.e., who heard the interface as synthesized text and other sounds) and for people who had difficulty operating pointing devices such as the mouse. The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not novel information visualization environments may have this type of differential effect on users' ability to navigate through information. We chose to focus on desktop virtual reality (VR) which for many people provides an enjoyable and immersive experience as they interact with information. We designed an experiment to look for possibly differential effects of desktop VR on people with lower levels of spatial ability and information structure learning ability. We used two different implementations of desktop VR to see if possible differential effects might be greater in a full 3D implementation than in a 2.5D environment.Navigation can generally be viewed as purposeful movement, or transformation (Zuberec, 1994), using the metaphor that "information occupies 'space' through which readers 'travel' or 'move'. . ." (McKnight, Dillon, & Richardson, 1991, p....

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Section: Spatial Abilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in exploration using desktop VR

Modjeska¹,

Chignell²

2003

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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“…It presents metadata and semantic associations between documents and dynamically rearranges them depending on the user task. StarWalker [18] is a multi-user virtual environment that presents semantically organized information. It visualizes documents as spheres and their semantic relations as links connecting them, and has been used as a testbed to study the behavior and search strategy of users in collaborative information retrieval tasks.…”

Section: B Semantic Navigation In Virtual Worldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual Worlds as Information Spaces: Supporting Semantic and Social Navigation in a shared 3D Environment

Vosinakis

Papadakis

2011

2011 Third International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications

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Abstract-Virtual worlds are a popular medium for communication and collaboration in 3D and they are being used as shared information spaces in various application areas. However, compared to traditional hypermedia and web-based information systems they offer little support for semantic and social navigation. In this paper, a framework for enhancing virtual worlds with metaphors that support improved semantic and social browsing in the 3D environment is proposed, and an integrated architecture for their interface with external information sources through the employment of Linked Data is presented. In order to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a prototype system has been implemented and accordingly evaluated.

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“…StarWalker was explicitly designed to support social navigation of ACM publications [3]. The Knowledge Garden [4] is a collaborative 3-D information visualization tool that people can utilize to meet and share information. Visitors of these semantically organized 3-D spaces are represented by avatars, are aware of one another, and can communicate.…”

Section: Motivation and Backgoundmentioning

confidence: 99%