Abstract
Co-design is essential for creating innovation and acceptable solutions, yet scheduling and on-site access often make in-person sessions infeasible. Social virtual reality (VR) is emerging as a promising alternative for co-design efforts. However, the specific challenges associated with VR make it difficult to directly apply co-design methods that are effective in traditional in-person workshops. This study aims to propose and evaluate a novel co-design method using social virtual reality (VR) for asynchronous collaborative designing in the context of childcare. The virtual environment included photo gram metric scans of a childcare room to simulate on-site design activities virtually, as well as embedded annotation panels summarizing prior discussions to support continuity across sessions. We conducted a series of four workshops with eight childcare staff members and twelve external experts from five disciplines. Each workshop hosted two participants in a social VR environment. The second workshop was analyzed through Mixed-method analysis, including conversation analysis, interviews, and questionnaires, which revealed that participants could perceive spatial presence and identify design issues using the annotations and photo gram metric scans. However, the limited contextual information embedded in the annotations constrained deeper discussion, particularly for participants unfamiliar with childcare contexts. Our findings suggest that expert background and general experience with the context of co-design significantly influence the interpretation of the photo gram metric scan and annotations, underscoring the need for richer contextual scaffolding. This research contributes to the development of computer-mediated co-design practices using immersive and annotated environments.
Keywords
Design Methods; Social Virtual Reality; Co-design; Early Childhood Education and Care
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.729
Citation
Taoka, Y., Iwasawa, F., Kagohashi, K., Fujimaki, S., Nakatani, M.,and Saito, S.(2025) Exploring Annotation-Enabled Co-Design in Social VR with Photogrammetric Childcare Rooms, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.729
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 6 - Co-creation
Exploring Annotation-Enabled Co-Design in Social VR with Photogrammetric Childcare Rooms
Co-design is essential for creating innovation and acceptable solutions, yet scheduling and on-site access often make in-person sessions infeasible. Social virtual reality (VR) is emerging as a promising alternative for co-design efforts. However, the specific challenges associated with VR make it difficult to directly apply co-design methods that are effective in traditional in-person workshops. This study aims to propose and evaluate a novel co-design method using social virtual reality (VR) for asynchronous collaborative designing in the context of childcare. The virtual environment included photo gram metric scans of a childcare room to simulate on-site design activities virtually, as well as embedded annotation panels summarizing prior discussions to support continuity across sessions. We conducted a series of four workshops with eight childcare staff members and twelve external experts from five disciplines. Each workshop hosted two participants in a social VR environment. The second workshop was analyzed through Mixed-method analysis, including conversation analysis, interviews, and questionnaires, which revealed that participants could perceive spatial presence and identify design issues using the annotations and photo gram metric scans. However, the limited contextual information embedded in the annotations constrained deeper discussion, particularly for participants unfamiliar with childcare contexts. Our findings suggest that expert background and general experience with the context of co-design significantly influence the interpretation of the photo gram metric scan and annotations, underscoring the need for richer contextual scaffolding. This research contributes to the development of computer-mediated co-design practices using immersive and annotated environments.