Designing and experimenting a web3d application for increasing the environmental awareness

In this paper we describe the design and the evaluation of a Web3D application for increasing the environmental awareness. The application has been designed in the context of an initiative of the Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, named Sustainable Ca' Foscari, aimed at improving the environmental impact of the institution. The communication to students, teachers and technical personnel is an important part of the project, realized mainly through the institutional web portal. The goal of this application is to enhance further the web communication channel, stimulating the comprehension and the interest of the users for the environmental themes, showing the improvements obtained through the years in the different thematic areas. The application has been designed for providing a rich and engaging environment to a wide audience, taking advantage of the recent technical novelties for the seamless integration of a 3D environment into a web page, without requiring additional plugins. The Web3D application guides the user through a metaphorical representation of the 10 thematic areas considered by the University initiative, permitting the users to access dynamically the data available on the server for different time spans. The web application has been tested with 48 students of the undergraduate degree in Computer Science, that at the end of the test filled in a post-test questionnaire based on closed and open questions. The results of the questionnaire, that will be discussed in the paper, show a high level of appreciation, confirming the usefulness of advanced visualization techniques for stimulating the environmental awareness.