Suitability of Searching and Representing Multimedia Learning Resources in a 3-D Virtual Gaming Environment

Search engines usually publish search results on web pages that are filled with a certain number of matched records that can be further navigated through successive back and forth operations. While this approach proves to be useful, it fails to show the context and relationship among displayed results. We argue that new and intuitive user interfaces, such as 3D virtual environment interfaces, may provide an alternative to the traditional presentation techniques, particularly in a learning environment where learners are looking for multimedia learning resources that match their interests. We propose a 3D car gaming environment such as a search metaphor and analyze the suitability of such an approach in terms of user perception, interaction, visual quality, graphics-rendering performance, and other parameters. Our experiment suggests that the proposed approach not only shows an intuitive way of information visualization but also integrates education and entertainment to serve the vision of Edutainment.