Planning participants’ preferential differences under immersive virtual reality and conventional representations: An experiment of street renewal

Abstract

Immersive virtual reality is a promising technology for planning participation. The paper contributes to the literature by comparing the latest virtual reality technology using head-mounted display with conventional graphic representation (pictures of rendered three-dimensional environments in this case) in terms of the effects on the participants’ preferences for the plans and their underlying decision mechanisms. Using a stated choice experiment based on a real-world project of street renewal, we collected choice data from 48 university students from non-design majors. We found significant quantitative but limited qualitative differences between the aggregate preferences under virtual reality and conventional graphic representation, and some generally unappealing features under conventional graphic representation were more favored under virtual reality. Results of the discrete choice modeling showed the individual decision mechanisms became more homogeneous under virtual reality. Virtual reality had stronger impacts on the female participants than the male participants. The females had more aggregate preference reversals, larger preference differences, and stronger changes in the decision mechanism. But the mechanisms of the two genders converged under virtual reality. The findings can be used to design better participatory processes with virtual reality and conventional graphic representation properly applied according to their capabilities.

Virtual reality and traditional design methods in Egyptian context

“…Analysing the results by gender in the VR group displays a slight difference between males and females, where males were better at understanding the design through the VR method than females. This is opposite to the findings of Zhu et al(2020) [26].These results may be due to the characteristic differences in the use of technologies, where the males are more attracted to the new technologies than the females. The younger participants better understood the design of the VR method than the adults.This returns to the fact that the younger participants were born in the digital age and are adapted to the technology and gaming approaches.…”

“…VR has been verified as an appropriate technical means to improve public motivation and satisfaction in urban decision-making [23]- [25]. Moreover, a study suggests that VR could be more effective on women than on men in enhancing their participation [26].…”

Individuals' perception of walkability: Results of a conjoint experiment using videos of virtual environments

“…For example, VR glasses (virtual reality headset), which is a headmounted device that provides immersive virtual reality for the wearer, allows one to dynamically display the built environment that enables a direct coupling between the respondents' motor actions and the simulation (Birenboim et al, 2019). Studying environmental preferences, Maffei et al (2016), Higuera-Trujillo et al (2017, Farooq et al (2018), Abd-Alhamid et al (2019), Atwa et al (2019), Birenboim et al (2019), Gao et al (2019), andZhu et al (2020) have also applied VR glasses in conjoint experiments. Furthermore, Birenboim et al (2019) and Zhu et al (2020) compared the participants' stated preferences under immersive virtual reality and conventional representations.…”

“…Studying environmental preferences, Maffei et al (2016), Higuera-Trujillo et al (2017, Farooq et al (2018), Abd-Alhamid et al (2019), Atwa et al (2019), Birenboim et al (2019), Gao et al (2019), andZhu et al (2020) have also applied VR glasses in conjoint experiments. Furthermore, Birenboim et al (2019) and Zhu et al (2020) compared the participants' stated preferences under immersive virtual reality and conventional representations. In their experiments, they asked respondents both to use a VR headset and to watch traditional representations (images) on a computer screen.…”

Rethinking the Public Space Design Process Using Extended Reality as a Game Changer for 3D Co-Design

“…Animated video visualizations or (online) interactive 3D environments are rarely offered. Mostly, VR applications in participation are still limited to experiments [12]. The intelligibility of graphical documents is crucial, as more and more citizens are willing to participate in urban design processes.…”