Method for evaluating VR-based tools for collaborative design

Virtual Reality systems can evermore impact on the quality of collaboration design processes. In the present work is defined a structured method to classify, qualify and select VR-based tools for supporting co- design activities by adopting a set of benchmarking metrics. Attention is focused on the collaboration scopes and requirements, participants’ behavior and exploited interaction modalities. The method has been applied to synchronous and remote collaboration that actually represents the most critical communication form in industry. Three different types of collaborative VR tools have been investigated and compared. Experimental results highlight how the proposed method is able to identify the main collaboration requirements by selecting the most proper supporting technology and show also the contribution to collaboration success.