Industrial Design Education and Immersive Virtual Reality: Perceptions on Utility and Integration

The use of Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) in collaborative and co-design contexts has proven valuable to product or industrial design specializations, yet integration has been notoriously slow within Higher Education (HE). This work sheds some light on the “why?” based on primary data sourced from two groups of design educators, through a mixed-methods design. The first group confirms the importance of digital and connected technologies in today’s design-centered learning environment and depict current stances regarding the use IVR as a tool for teaching and learning. The second, composed solely of educators operating in an industrial design HE program, add specificity by offering qualitative insight into aspects concerning IVR utility and integration into this particular specialization. Results foresee the technology furthering learning both on-campus and from afar, with richer virtual interactions, digital re-enactment of experiential learning, or using simulation to create new or replicate existing contexts virtually. However, the envisioned benefits appear to hinge on a series of factors, including critics over an already exceeding amount of technology in the learning environment, personal competence, skepticism over the technology merits, and other more concrete such as time, resources, familiarization or lack of technical support. Overall, participants envisage a more virtually interactive educational experience with IVR, though its reputed complexity or lack of a solid and pressing need seems to be keeping integration at bay.