Exploiting 3D Web to Enhance Online Shopping: Toward an Update of Usability Heuristics

Online shopping has become a widespread habit for millions of users all over the world. E-stores are very convenient for both customers and retailers, because they are accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world. However, they also convey relevant drawbacks for both parties: customers can only explore endless grids of flat items, and retailers are likely to struggle to manage and update their e-commerce autonomously. Here we present an e-commerce platform levering on 3DWeb technology that is meant to enhance the sopping experience for customers on the one side, and to retailers to independently operate on their e-store. The experience of user with Hybrid Consumer Interface and the Hybrid Seller Interface were evaluated in two interdependent sessions with representative end users (N = 57 in total). Even of both interfaces are still at a prototypical stage, results from the experimental sessions show promising outcomes.