User Insights about Using Immersive Virtual Reality in Industrial Design Studio Courses

In recent years, it is observed that immersive headsets such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift etc., which were developed mainly targeting game and entertainment industries, are being used for different purposes in different fields. Industrial design is one of them. Although this technology has already been used professionally by designers in private sectors, it is not clear whether it will be accepted or not by industrial design students and instructors, and whether will take place or not in industrial design studio courses. For this reason, with the support of Autodesk and PENTA Technology, a study, in which 12 instructors and 26 students from 10 universities in Turkey participated, was conducted with the aim of gaining insights from industrial design students and instructors about using this type of immersive virtual reality (IVR) technology in industrial design courses. First of all, participants were introduced to this particular technology by the representatives of Autodesk and PENTA. Then, they tried it in a training session. After the trial session, participants were asked to fill out an online questionnaire. In the last part of the study, participants discussed the advantages and disadvantages of this technology in terms of industrial design education. This part was recorded with both a video camera and a sound recorder. As a result, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. By analyzing the data, attitudes of the actors of industrial design education towards IVR technology were tried to be understood.