Structuring Interactions in a Hybrid Virtual Environment - Infrastructure & Usability

Pablo Almajano, Enric Mayas, Inmaculada Rodriguez, Maite Lopez-Sanchez, Anna Puig

2013

Abstract

Humans in the Digital Age are continuously exploring different forms of socializing on-line. In Social 3D Virtual Worlds (VW) people freely socialize by participating in open-ended activities in 3D simulated spaces. Moreover, VWs can also be used to engage humans in e-applications, the so called Serious VWs. Implicitly, these serious applications have specific goals that require structured environments where participants play specific roles and perform activities by following well-defined protocols and norms. In this paper we advocate for the use of Virtual Institutions (VI) to provide explicit structure to current Social 3D VWs. We refer to the resulting system as hybrid (participants can be both human and software agents) and structured Virtual Environments. Specifically, we present v-mWater (a water market, an e-government application deployed as a VI), the infrastructure that supports participants’ interactions, and the evaluation of its usability.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Almajano P., Mayas E., Rodriguez I., Lopez-Sanchez M. and Puig A. (2013). Structuring Interactions in a Hybrid Virtual Environment - Infrastructure & Usability . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications and International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2013) ISBN 978-989-8565-46-4, pages 288-297. DOI: 10.5220/0004215802880297

in Bibtex Style

@conference{grapp13,
author={Pablo Almajano and Enric Mayas and Inmaculada Rodriguez and Maite Lopez-Sanchez and Anna Puig},
title={Structuring Interactions in a Hybrid Virtual Environment - Infrastructure & Usability},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications and International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2013)},
year={2013},
pages={288-297},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004215802880297},
isbn={978-989-8565-46-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications and International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2013)
TI - Structuring Interactions in a Hybrid Virtual Environment - Infrastructure & Usability
SN - 978-989-8565-46-4
AU - Almajano P.
AU - Mayas E.
AU - Rodriguez I.
AU - Lopez-Sanchez M.
AU - Puig A.
PY - 2013
SP - 288
EP - 297
DO - 10.5220/0004215802880297