THE EFFECTS OF MODELING IN IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL REALITY ON THE DESIGN PROCESS

Abstract

The evolution of design tools and techniques has continually transformed how designers conceive and refine their visions. Each leap forward has offered new avenues to explore and express creative ideas, from hand sketches to physical prototypes to digital 3D models. This study delves into how immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environments impact the design process by examining the creativity of design outcomes and cognitive load (CL). Design students from the University of Florida were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, immersive (VR) versus non-immersive (PC), and tasked with a design brief. Data collection included questionnaires, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) devices, and NASA-TLX to measure CL. The designed outcomes were evaluated by a panel of design experts to ascertain the level of creativity. The findings suggest that immersive VR environments significantly enhance design outcomes' novelty and innovative potential, suggesting a heightened capacity for creative ideation. Conversely, non-immersive environments were more conducive in refining and finalizing the creative designs, pointing to their strengths in detail-oriented tasks. Interestingly, while the overall CL did not significantly differ between the two environments, immersive VR was associated with increased physical demand and perceived task difficulty. When exploring the relationship between creativity and CL, the analysis showed a statistically significant inverse relationship, demonstrating that an increase in CL correlates with lower creativity in the design outcomes.