A systematic review of the potential application of virtual reality within a user pre-occupancy evaluation

This research aims to discover the potential applications of virtual reality within a user pre-occupancy evaluation. The capability of the VR creates detailed observations, a feeling of immersion, an accurate behaviour measurement and systematic environmental manipulations, which can be controlled in the laboratory. However, previous studies seem to have paid little attention to specific clients when suggesting the most suitable VR approach at the evaluation stage. Moreover, few studies have investigated the use of VR in supporting designers in best practice, and only a limited number of studies focus on the design evaluation from a user’s perspective. A systematic literature review is therefore conducted in this study, which focuses on end-user participation. The purpose of this is to explore the extent to which VR is used and to find potential research directions for further studies. The results indicate that VR is a useful aid in a preoccupancy evaluation which is acceptable and reliable for users.