Interactive Web 3D Product Manuals
January 8, 2023
Author: Nathan Millar
Industrial designers conceive new products or equipment and improve existing ones. They focus on a their usability and aesthetics for mass producing it for sale, distribution and implementation. When products are ready to be brought to the market, they are generally showcased as physical prototypes, images, videos or catalogue documents to portray their features.
Manners of visualizing these items have been evolving as technology progresses. After 70 years, IKEA has now moved on from their traditional paper catalogues to now relying on their website, stores and social media to showcase their product range.
This most likely due to web pages being easier to find from search results, getting linked and noticed whereas paper tends to disappear. One can search and find content on web pages online and from anywhere, whereas physical paper tends to get lost or ends up in a trash can. Also, web pages can contain other forms of media such as videos or audio.
Capabilities of web browsers to render visuals has been evolving even further from video and audio, to also be capable of rendering real-time interactive 3D web graphics with WebGL. This allows users to understand digital representations of item’s from many dimensions by being able to rotate and zoom into details without having to be in contact with the physical item or prototype to experience a digital twin. Web AR and VR also now allow users to interact with digital items in a virtual space or in their own environment.
Benefits of Web 3D Product Manuals
The following are the benefits for showcasing products in interactive Web 3D applications:
Customize surfaces and components
- Allow users to experience different variations of your product in one frame.
Spread product parts
- Provides a better understanding of what a product consists of.
Rotate, translate and zoom into details
- A user could inspect a digital twin of a product as if holding it in their hands.
Showcase a products features in stages
- Instead of scrubbing through a video, a user could transition back and forth between key features from a button click.
CX - Customer Experience
Since these aspects improve the online customer experience users have with a product, it may be useful to understand the importance of CX in current online business.
Superoffice.com has a customer experience statistics report which reveals the following:
3 Reasons why Businesses Invest in Customer Experience: Addressing each of theses reasons can positively impact bottom line revenue:
- 42% - To Improve cross-selling and up-selling
- 32% - To Improve customer satisfaction
- 33% - To improve customer retention
1,920 business say that top Priorities for businesses in the next 5 years are:
- 45.9% - Customer Experience
- 20.5% - Pricing
- 33.6% - Product
$1 billion annually can expect to earn, on average, an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience.
Investing in CX initiatives has the potential to double your revenue.
86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
Customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.
67% of customers prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative.
Web 3D Product Manuals for the 21st Century
Viewing multiple static images and text or watching timely linear videos to find a particular product feature can be limited or time consuming. Whereas using WebGL technology to simulate products adds more dimensions of possibility, making them more immersive and accessible to remote clients.
Reach out to Arvec if you are interested in a 3D web app to showcase how great your products are!
You can try out this drone 3D app yourself here: