Influence of Immersive Contextual Environments on Collaborative Ideation Cognition Through design conversations, gestures and sketches

In the design studio, Virtual Reality (VR) has mainly been included as a visualization tool to explore pre-designed ideas developed in traditional 3D software or using pen on paper. Meanwhile, a reshaping of the design process has been taking place, bringing forward interaction/experiential concerns and co-design approaches throughout disciplines in a push for a more thorough consideration of projects' contexts. This paper reports an exploratory study of how immersive contextual representations influence the co-ideation process. Audio-video recordings of co-ideation sessions (9) from a pedagogical studio were analyzed through verbal and representational (sketches and design gestures) exchanges as occurring in three different conditions: (a) pen on paper, immersive headset-free VR (b) without, and (c) with the use of contextual immersive environment (photogrammetric scans and 3D models). Results show that, although design conversations were similar across all conditions, design gestures were more often directly related to- than independent from the graphical representation only when using an immersive contextual environment. Furthermore, the rate of sketching episodes in general and sketching explanations were considerably lower in this condition. This could imply that use of pre-made context greatly reduces the need of sketching elements to support a clearer co-ideation.