ABSTRACT
Technological advances over the past decade have laid the foundation for ubiquitous computing. One such advancement that could potentially address people’s information and general needs is virtual environment (VE) technology (Stanney, 2002). Virtual environments allow users to be immersed into three-dimensional (3D) digital worlds, surrounding them with tangible objects to be manipulated and venues to be traversed, which they can experience from an egocentric perspective. Through the concrete and familiar, users can enact known perceptual and cognitive skills to interact with a virtual world; there is no need to learn the contrived conventions of more traditional graphical user interfaces. Virtual environments also extend the realm of computer interaction, from the purely visual to multimodal communication that more closely parallels human-human exchanges. Virtual environment users not only see visual representations but can also reach out and grab objects, “feel” their size, rotate them in any given axis, hear their movement, and even smell associated aromas. Such experiences do not have to be in solitude, as VE users can take along artificial autonomous agents or collaborate with other users who also have representations within the virtual world. Taken together, this multisensory experience should afford natural and intuitive interaction.
