e-Tourism and Culture through Virtual Art Galleries: A pilot study of the usability of an interface

Virtual tours of museums and galleries are
becoming an increasingly common aspect of e-Tourism
marketing. This paper reports on a usability pilot study that
analyses the design of icons in a German 3-D virtual art gallery
interface. It evaluates the extent to which a sample of typical
computer users can interpret the meaning of icons from the
interface taken ‘out of context’. This was done by assessing a
sample of twenty-one icons representing the ‘action’,
‘information’ and ‘navigation’ functions. An Icon Intuitiveness
Test (IIT) was used to measure their Icon Recognition Rate
(IRR) and to classify them as ‘identifiable’, ‘mediocre’ or
‘vague’ according to an adapted stereotypy. The IIT results
show that the meaning of almost 30% of the icons was
misinterpreted or confused, which can seriously compromise
the usability of an interface. Based on these findings,
recommendations are made for icon redesign and replacement
and it is concluded that further research is needed into the
‘learnability’ of icons and users’ understanding of icons in
context. It is contended that increased usability leading to an
improved user experience can have an economic impact on e-Tourism.