The very first group of XR students in Metropolia got an assignment to write about the possibilities of XR tools in industrial design processes. As key points the students mentioned the intuitive design process, as well as examining and designing items in the natural scale. The XR tools start “a new chapter in the way humans interact with computers.”
The working habits have already changed radically, and will continue changing as the technologies keep on developing. With XR tools, extended reality in other words, brings new ways to work and operate, and the students believe that one day designing in VR environment will be more effective than the old-school techniques using a mouse and a keyboard. Making quick and intuitive shape studies becomes more like the traditional sculpting with the help of XR tools.
The design process will be faster and more fluent, and so-called missteps are done more seldom. The products can be examined in a natural scale already in the very beginning, and no time or materials need to be wasted in real life prototyping. By using extended reality it is easy to for example compare different surface or color alternatives, and the customers can see realistic examples right away. Co-operation becomes simple even from long distances, as it is possible to access the same virtual environment with the design team or customer and to examine and handle the same product. In addition, the interaction between designers and users might increase, as it becomes easier to get straight feedback from customers especially when the amount of vr and ar visors among consumers still grows.