User evaluation of a domain-oriented end-user design environment for building 3D virtual chemistry experiments

Three-dimensional virtual world technologies have the potential to be applied in the domain of education. However, end users such as teachers found it difficult to apply virtual world technologies because of technical issues. This paper discusses the technical difficulties end users face when developing 3D virtual worlds. We investigate the problem from the perspective of end-user programming and propose a methodology for solving this problem. In order to evaluate this methodology, a domain-oriented end-user design environment implementing the methodology has been developed and applied in the domain of educational virtual chemistry laboratory. Two user studies are designed to assess the methodology from two different perspectives. The first user study evaluates the usability of the methodology. The second user study assesses the usability of virtual experiments generated using the methodology.