Design Reviews in Immersive and Non-Immersive Collaborative Virtual Environments: Comparing Verbal Communication Structures

DS 116: Proceedings of the DESIGN2022 17th International Design Conference

Year: 2022
Editor: Mario Štorga, Stanko Škec, Tomislav Martinec, Dorian Marjanović
Author: Nikola Horvat, Marko Brnčić, Marija Majda Perišić, Tomislav Martinec, Nenad Bojčetić, Stanko Škec
Series: DESIGN
Institution: University of Zagreb, Croatia
Section: Organisation, Collaboration and Management
Page(s): 211-220
DOI number: https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2022.23
ISSN: 2732-527X (Online)

Abstract

The paper explores the differences between immersive and non-immersive collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) during design reviews. Based on ten reviews with one designer and two reviewers, the study shows that CVEs affect verbal communication structure. More specifically, teams usually talked less, and reviewers exchanged significantly more turn sequences in immersive than in non-immersive CVEs. Regardless of the environment, most turn sequences were related to the designer, who usually talked the most. These findings contribute to the understanding of CVEs in virtual teams.

Keywords: collaborative design, virtual reality (VR), design review, verbal communication structure, virtual teams