Developing a Methodology for Co-creation using Extended Reality Technologies

In the past decades there is a lot of heed towards Human Centered Design (HCD) Approach in which users are involved for needs collection or validation sessions of the prototypes for problem identification. A successful design relies also on how well different stakeholders are proactively involved since the beginning or even in the creative phase of product development. Therefore, in the recent times, innovative organizations are shifting their ideation strategies towards the concept of "co-creation" in order to improve their creative businesses. Co-creation is known to draw in final users or customers in the design process to collaborate and interact in jointly generating solutions and creating value. Thus, the platform where co-creators engage plays an influential role in improving the creative participation and thus user experience. Traditional co-creation platforms limit a user in various forms. The immense growth of innovative technologies such as Extended Reality (XR) tools have expanded to interactive and collaborative environment developments regulating new ways of working. My PhD research proposes XR tools as potential digital co-creation platforms and focuses on establishing the key factors that influence "co-creation" process in XR by laying out a methodology and developing number of applications fulfilling these factors during product development process promoting the idea. This paper describes the principles of co-creation, the importance of co-creation platforms, elements of co-creation and outlines few application scenarios developed in the context of product development process striving to demonstrate XR environment as a co-creation space. The research will also provide interesting insights into emerging design practices and expects to study the factors that affect a user in this innovative co-creative XR world and collect practical recommendations. Through ISMAR'22 Doctoral Consortium, I would like to gain expert inputs on validation methods for the applications developed that can strengthen the concept proposal.