Evaluation framework for improving 360 virtual tours user experience

In the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the series of lockdowns it introduced, virtual tourism allows individuals to experience cultural places and artifacts remotely from the safety of their homes. A popular form of virtual tourism is 360-degree virtual tours: digital experiences that render a 360-degree audiovisual representation of the real-world environment on the users' personal device. However, despite the growing popularity of 360 virtual tours, there is no unified conceptual framework for designing such experiences. In our work, we analyzed multiple existing virtual tours and constructed a four-dimensional framework for virtual tour design. We discuss this initial framework, describe how we plan to extend the current work-in-progress, and propose future research directions.