Public Funding for Loud 1 Design Limited

"Client design review meetings are commercially and creatively charged settings that can have significant influence on project direction and client relations. VR offers great opportunities to improve visualisation, engagement and interaction if deployed effectively. However, simply dropping a computer model into the VR environment is inadequate, and indeed has the potential to alienate or misinform without sufficient consideration of the role it will play in the meeting. 'PowerPoint fail' is a term coined to identify (and ridicule) poorly utilised presentation software in business meetings, and despite its potential benefits VR is susceptible to the same pitfalls as any poorly implemented technology. This project aims to avoid these through the delivery of a template for best practice in the use of VR to support client design review meetings. In recognising design review meetings as complex social interactions, where commercial, creative and personal dynamics can be conflated and easily lead to misunderstanding and dissatisfaction, it adopts a human-centred approach to assess, generate and evaluate meeting structures. The project will therefore establish the VR-related resources will be required in space, IT assets and bespoke software in a commercial design consultancy setting. Additionally, it will deliver an enhanced understanding of the requirements of multiple stakeholders, develop appropriate interventions, and communicate these for effective VR-supported design reviews. The work will be led by and situated in Loud1Design, a design consultancy based in Glasgow, and run in collaboration with Department of Design, Manufacture and Engineering Management at the University of Strathclyde. The main project output will be an experience map that will identify types of interaction and associated behaviours in VR design review meetings. This will allow L1 to browse and select the elements most relevant depending on their product, client, design phase etc., and to immediately implement practical changes for better VR-supported meetings.The project output will be a VR enhanced design and development workflow that Loud1Design can offer to end clients or sell into other design consultancy teams on a project by project basis, offering shorter development cycles and higher quality and reduced prototyping costs."