Designing In Immersive Virtual Environments: A Qualitative Comparison of View Modes

This study investigates design behavior within Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) systems by comparing different virtual design environments through an experimental setting. The main argument is that bodily interaction, egocentric view and immersion within iVR would influence designers to focus on experience-oriented design objectives. On the other hand, availability of non-egocentric representation modes is essential to designers to make schematic design decisions. The paper proposes a multi-modal iVR design environment to overcome usability issues of iVR. A group of 9 undergraduate architecture students participated in the study and were distributed into three design environments, namely Single-modal iVR, Multi-modal İVR and Single-modal Desktop setting. Participants were asked to design an exhibition area, and their verbalizations are analyzed qualitatively. Emerging patterns and particularities regarding design environments are explained. The findings suggest that immersion influences designers to make experience-oriented decisions while majority of participants pointed out the need of multiple representation modes during design.