Will different scales impact on design collaboration in 3D virtual environments?

This chapter presents a study on the impact of design scales on collaborations in 3D virtual environments. Different domains require designers to work on different scales; for instance, urban design and electronic circuit design operate at very different scales. However, the understanding of the effects of scales upon collaboration in virtual environment is limited. In this chapter, the authors propose to use protocol analysis method to examine the differences between two design collaboration projects in virtual environments: one large scale, and another small scale within a similar domain. It shows that the difference in scale impacted more on communication control and social communication. © 2012, IGI Global.