iBusiness, 2011, 3, 237-243
237
doi:10.4236/ib.2011.33031 Published Online September 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ib)
Research on Influencing Factors of Web 3D User
Experience with Grounded Theory *
Jiangping Wan , Hui Zhang
1,2 1
1  School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China; 2 Institute of Emerging Industrializa-
tion Development South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.
Email: scutwjp@126.com, shidelan@163.com
Received April 26 , 2011; revised May 29 , 2011; accepted June 13 , 2011.
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ABSTRACT
The influencing factors on Web 3D User Experience are studied for online pavilion of Shanghai World Expo with
grounded theory method. We discover the four influencing factors as follow : web site quality , external environmental
factor, user internal factor and recommendation, and the influencing factor model of Web 3D user experience is tried to
established. We also do case study for the online Guangdong pavilion of Shanghai World Expo in order improve the
process to transfer original wonderful, innovative ideas into Web 3D more perfective. Finally, the areas needing further
investigation are put forward.
Keywords: Web 3D, User Experience, Shanghai World Expo Online, Grounded Theory
1. Introduction  conclusions are in the end.
The Harvard Business Review ran an article titled “Wel-
come to the Experience Economy.” Pine and Gilmore,
who wrote a book by the same name, argue that the en-
tire history of economic progress could be captured as a
progression from extracting commodities (agrarian eco-
nomy), to making goods (industrial economy), to deliv-
ering services (service economy), and now, to one of
staging experiences (experience economy). The article
suggests characteristics of desirable experiences that
draw heavily from entertainment and customer service,
as well as five principles for designing such experiences:
theme the experience, fulfill it in all the details, harmo-
nize the impression with positive cues, eliminate nega-
tive cues, and mix in memorabilia [1].
World Expo 2010 was held in Shanghai with virtual
reality and other technologies to present the physical
Expo on Internet, and can be seen over the world. The
influencing factors of Web 3D user experience are stud-
ied for online pavilion of Shanghai World Expo with
theory grounded method by questionnaire and in-depth
interview. This paper is organized as follow: introduction
and literature review are in the first, research design, in-
formation coding and case study are in following, and
2. Literature Review
Design principles connect the visual design of a visuali-
zation with the viewer’s perception and cognition of the
underlying information the visualization is meant to
convey. Identifying and formulating good design princi-
ples often requires analyzing the best hand-designed
visualizations, examining prior research on the percep-
tion and cognition of visualizations, and when necessary,
conducting user studies into how visual techniques affect
perception and cognition. Given a set of design rules and
quantitative evaluation criteria, we can use procedural
techniques and/or energy optimization to build auto-
mated visualization-design systems [2]. Within a mar-
keting context, a company must find “a powerful point of
differentiation through the use of aesthetics to create
positive overall customer impressions that depict the
multifaceted personality of the company or brand.” Sub-
stantial attention is devoted to the branding phase during
which a symbol is strategically created, conveys a posi-
tioning, provides tangible value, and is most effectively
managed on a daily basis [3].
With the improvement of user requirement, experience
has become “wide spread, wide angle” [4], evolves into a
kind of complete experience which formed during the
process of users interacting with software products. As
*  This research was supported by Key Project of Guangdong Province
Education Office (06JDXM63002).
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