The total duration of the study was determined to 2 hours per participant, including 15 minutes break. However, some of the participants stated they required more time to finish their designs, so up to 15 minutes extension was also provided in some cases. The study had seven main stages that were distributed as determined time intervals in the duration of the study. During the user study, the procedure was followed, and its stages and their contents as follows:
Introduction: The first part of the study consists of the distribution of the consent forms, a brief recallment of the fundamental concepts of HoloArch, a brief explanation about the procedure, and practical information about the control of the environment and VR gadget.
Protocol: Before the participants initiate the design process, the tool’s interface and its features will be introduced while they are wearing the VR gadget. In order to show participants how all the features of the application functioning, succinct instructions will be given before they begin the design process via HoloArch.
Different instructions given to participants may affect the reliability results.134 For the elimination of inconsistencies and differences in the instructions, a protocol is
134 Jonathan Lazar, Jinjuan Heidi Feng, and Harry Hochheiser, Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction, Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-044481862-1/50075-3.
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determined to be sure each participant will be informed in the same conditions. In that way, any systematic errors caused by procedural bias were tried to be prevented.
It is planned that the participants will apply the dictated actions according to the comprehensively prepared instructions in the protocol document. Since the participants will be wearing the headset, all of the instructions will be readout. The protocol will allow the participants to explore and to learn how to control and use the system. The protocol has 14 steps and three types consisting of exploration, design, and workflow actions. The time spared for this stage is ten minutes. The steps of the protocol can be seen in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1. The followed Instruction Protocol
Action Types Instructions
1. Exploration Action Place UI to above the head
2. Exploration Action Wander around the building by teleporting 3. Exploration Action Activate wireframe view to see inside the building 4. Exploration Action Go inside the building by hiding envelope
5. Exploration Action Select any building elements and display its BIM data 6. Exploration Action Scale building to 1/100, 1/2, 1,10
7. Exploration Action Turn on/off shadow rendering 8. Exploration Action Visualize morning simulation data
9. Design Action Change building orientation in bird-eye view 10. Design Action Change width and height of any window 11. Design Action Change material of any window
12. Design Action Place shading element and change its rotation 13. Design Action Place furniture and tree
14. Workflow Action Apply changes
Design: After the initial adaptation to the system, participants will be freed to do any actions they desire for 30 minutes. Since the participants will have adapted themselves to the system in the protocol stage, they performed design actions without the distraction caused by any further guidance. During the design phase, the actions of the designers are anticipated as follows; they will tend to interpret the daylight
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analysis of the building, and they will tend to edit the elements of the building in order to improve the daylighting efficiency of the design. After the participants finalized their design, they will apply all of the changes in the model in order to update the BIM model and daylighting analyses.
Update of the Design: The changes made in the case study building via HoloArch in prior stages, will be transferred to the BIM environment for re-conduction of the daylighting analyses via Autodesk Insight. The geometry will be updated automatically according to the changes made in the IE by using RF Tools’ Revit Plug-in. Since Autodesk Insight is a cloud-based system, the conduction of the analyses takes time because of its queue-based priority working principle. For the queue related time elongations, 15 minutes are devoted to this stage.
Comparison: The fifth stage of the procedure is based on the comparison of the baseline and the participant’s daylighting designs by synchronically switching between daylighting simulations’ visualization in HoloArch. It is planned that participants will see the effect of their performative actions and their decisions’
reflection on daylighting efficiency. In this way, the participants are anticipated to understand how their actions will shape the daylighting condition of the baseline design. This stage constitutes the final part of the immersive experience.
Questionnaire: A small break reducing possible motion sicknesses caused by the immersive experience is given between the comparison and questionnaire stage for the participants to recover themselves. For data collection matters, a questionnaire set including widely used TAM, PQ, SUS questionnaires is distributed to
participants. Ten minutes are spared at this stage for the completion of the questionnaires.
One to One Interview: As the final stage of the procedure, 40 minutes in-depth one to one interview is designed to collect extensive feedback from the
participants. The illustration of the procedure stages can be seen in Figure 5.2.
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Figure 5.2. The structure of the final user study