Virtual Environment Definition for product model usability evaluation

Advanced Virtual Reality (VR) based technologies can support product usability testing at the early design stages by allowing the interaction with highly realistic virtual prototypes. These tools provide an easy evaluation of physical ergonomic parameters (posture and occlusion), while the emotional and affective dimensions are still difficult to be assessed. In this context, the present paper, firstly, investi-gates which product attributes stimulate affective user response by analyzing and comparing how sample users experience product attributes in real and virtual envi-ronments. A structured protocol has been properly defined in order to achieve the result. The comparison allowed determining the needed features for improving the virtual scenario by proper Human Computer Interaction (HCI) technologies. Ac-cording to the analysis a new usability testing system has been structured.