Exploring the use of virtual reality in co-reviewing designs

Virtual reality (VR) is an upcoming technology that is increasingly used in design environments. In a design process, designers often work together through co-creation. The next step, one that is often overlooked, is co-reviewing in VR. Virtual reality has potential as a valuable decisive step in the creation process, replacing a traditional tool. One tool in the traditional design reviewing processes is the trade-off analysis. In VR, concepts can be reviewed in different sizes and through various perspectives, the products are perceived as more tangible and true-to-scale. To obtain a better view on the use of VR in co-reviewing, a comparison of a traditional method with an immersive method is made in this paper. The participants are eight industrial design master students which did the experiment in pairs of two. The results show that VR offers advantages for reviewing ergonomics of a design, in which traditional 2D screen-based software is more limited in comparison.