Designing for Usability in 3D Virtual Environments

This paper is about designing 3D applications and the software design process in desktop virtual environments. Here, we introduce parts of our work on a design-focused approach to usability engineering and software development for 3D desktop virtual environments. We begin by discussing some of the current limitations in virtual environment research. We then introduce alternate perspectives for improving the usability of virtual environment applications. We highlight the need for a software development approach to designing virtual environment applications and provide some arguments for this. Finally, we conclude by providing a summary of our work-in-progress solution.