The field of application of virtual and augmented reality advances today at a rapid pace. The insertion of these tools in the design process can positively impact the daily work in the classroom, especially when we approach the visuality in design decisions in the creative process. We know, however, that such practice can also lead to unexpected developments, which can even negatively affect the creative process. Considering these possible paths, it is important to understand these impacts and results in the educational practice of students from Architecture and Urbanism and Design courses at UFC, considering the phases and ways of using these tools within our local reality.

This research project arises due to funding received from the company Unity Engine (https://unity.com/) in partnership with Meta-Facebook (https://about.facebook.com/br/). Such contribution will be destined to the realization of actions that insert AR and VR within the design teaching system in the department. This research project is proposed in order to understand the impacts of this insertion, considering the best ways of application. The results of the research will also serve as a basis for further insertions of new equipment, either in our unit or others in our state and country.

The expansion of representation capabilities brought by new technologies leads to discussions about the influence on perception and individual and collective deliberation based on the degree of immersion and interaction with information in virtual environments. In the current context of the information computing capacity, the decision process is something that tends to be influenced according to the use of tools. The need to deal with alternatives goes through a cognitive chain that has, as one of its extensions, vision. The expansion of access and capacity of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

In more specific terms, the core of this work is to investigate the use of spatial information visualization devices and their influence on the spheres of perception, stimulating reflections about individual and collective deliberation based on the degree of immersion and interaction with information in virtual environments.

Designing is inspiration, but it is also, in large part, the fruit of sweating to understand the problem-situation and dialogue with it. Because it is an arduous process, sometimes we designers become attached to initial decisions and tend not to promote the cyclical nature necessary for ideal project development. This attachment we call fixation. New technologies such as AR and VR can speed up the process of production, prototyping, and testing in the design process. The effort to arrive at an idea to be discarded becomes lessened, so the fixation to initial decisions, and the attachment to improve or abandon them, can be reduced. Thus, one of the potentially analyzable points is to understand how fixation in the design process occurred for students who used ICTs compared to those who did not.