Incidental Memory and Navigation in Panoramic Virtual

There is much interest in the issue of how to design computer applications to support the tasks of finding and selecting consumer products (Guttman, Moukas, & Maes, 1998). This interest has been driven by the perceived potential impact of on-line electronic commerce (e-commerce) on the consumer market. However, although much effort has been dedicated to designing and implementing new systems for representing shopping sites and products, relatively little empirical work has been aimed at determining the psychological consequences of these systems. Without a more comprehensive understanding of the properties of the representations used in ecommerce, little can be predicted about their effectiveness as media for selling products. An issue of particular interest concerns the consequences on navigation and memory of the use of virtual reality representations that model the structure of a physical commercial environment. Current virtual reality sites are based on a range of technologies. Two that illustrate the diversity of these technologies are the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR). They use either polygon-rendered virtual environments (VRML) or networks of interlinked photopanoramic scenes (QTVR). Both use a nonimmersive 2D display to give the user the visual impression of moving through a 3D space (cf., systems for stereopsis, Thimbleby, 1997). These technologies appear to offer a means of constructing compelling and easy-to-use e-commerce environments. Moreover, it might be argued that people will make more use of on-line commercial sites if these sites enable a style of interaction that builds on that experienced in real-world shops. Wann and MonWilliams (1996) however, warned against assuming that virtual reality
Address correspondence to Andrew Howes, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, P. 0. Box 901, Cardiff, CFI 3YG, Wales. United Kingdom; . HUMAN FACTORS, Vol. 43, No. 2, Summer 2001, pp. 239-254. Copyright 0 2001, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.
Incidental Memory and Navigation in Panoramic Virtual Reality for Electronic Commerce
Andrew Howes, Gareth E. Miles, Stephen J. Payne, Christabel D. Mitchell, and Anthony J. Davies, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales
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Summer 2001 - Human Factors
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representations will be suitable for all tasks. Guttman et al. (1998) claimed that the best systems for e-commerce are those that make most use of the strength of computers as tools for retrieving sets of products that match specified criteria. Indeed, there are no magic bullets in human-computer interaction; representations need to be carefully selected to fit the particular task characteristics. In e-commerce a range of representations is emerging to support different aspects of the commercial process. Miles, Howes, and Davies (2000) reviewed a number of these representations. For example, systems have been designed to support auction-style negotiation of price and product comparison. There are also electronic sales assistants, which attempt to guide customers through the decision-making process. Sites based on virtual reality technologies form only a small proportion of the currently available sites. For what reasons, then, might we believe that virtual reality representations could be beneficial for e-commerce? We consider two answers to this question. The first answer concerns the ease of navigating virtual environments; the second concerns what people remember about a visit to an e-commerce site. People who are familiar with navigating the real world may find it easier to navigate metaphoric (i.e., virtual reality) representations rather than abstract hypertext representations. Ruddle, Payne, and Jones (1997) demonstrated that people display a pattern of learning in virtual reality computer-based environments similar to that which they display in the real world. For a novice, the effects of moving forward through a virtual environment are clear from the metaphor, whereas the consequences of following a hyperlink (e.g., whether or not the action is reversible) may seem relatively opaque. Similarly, users of virtual environments should know what to expect when they pan through 3600. Some research has attempted to expose the consequences of using spatial metaphors in hypertext environments. For example, advantage is known to derive from embellishing hypertext with a 2D spatial metaphor (Hammond & Allinson, 1989; Kim, 1997; Kim & Hirtle, 1995). Kim provided empirical evidence that metaphors such as using an "escalator" for links that take a user back up the site hierarchy