Design of ubiquitous 3D virtual spaces: matching with behavioural patterns

Numerous studies have recently been directed towards designing and modelling for ubiquitous computing, to attain optimum customization of environments, like social networks, to cater for users’ different and specific needs. One rapidly booming group of these social networking environments is 3D Virtual Worlds, which despite emerging predominantly only within the past decade, have attracted millions of socially interacting users. However there is currently scarce research investigating optimum design criteria of 3D virtual spaces for ubiquitous computing and best adaptation to user needs inside these virtual environments. This study aims to bridge this gap in research by proposing a methodology for deriving guidelines for alignment of user behavioural patterns inside 3D virtual worlds with best design principles, which can be used to enhance the 3D environments’ spaces and hence augment users’ behaviour inside them. This is achieved by conducting experiments on case studies of users’ educational and social behavioural patterns inside Second Life, a pronounced representative of 3D virtual environments. Changes in user avatars’ diverse behaviours and activities are examined on applying different modifications to the design and modelling of the medium’s spaces. Thus optimum design guidelines for creating 3D virtual spaces to enhance users’ behaviour are derived, consequently realizing an optimised ubiquitous 3D user interface.