Objectives:

• To facilitate students' creative process of store planning by upgrading the store interior function of the virtual display platform to allow students to conceptualize store interior in addition to the existing window display function;
• To enhance students' learning experience by incorporating the interactive functions from the Blackboard learning management system (LEARN@PolyU); and
• To encourage students' active participation in learning by means of design-based projects of fashion retail business.

Remarks:

Visual Merchandising (VM) is a core subject for fashion retailing students which concerns the presentation of store atmosphere to create appropriate moods that stimulate customers to approach stores and increase their purchase intentions. The course structure ofVM requires a series of handson design-related aspects and practices, which range from design principles, colour, lighting design, interior structure of store, fashion styling, to development of window displays. Although it is a design-based subject, most of the fashion retailing students who are enrolled in this course lack a design background . As a result, this becomes problematic for students when they are asked to generate creative and aesthetic ideas for store designs and displays. It is also difficult for them to generate new and interesting ideas as they lack training and background in art and design.

Therefore, they resort to systematic approaches to generate and visualize new ideas before executing their display. In response, a virtual display platform has been developed to help students in the development of initial ideas.

VM is an all-rounded subject that not only cover s store window display design but also store interior design. Thus, this study enhances and extends the aforementioned virtual display platform so that functions for store interior design can be provided, which is a major component of VM. The enhancement of the virtual platform can assist students in designing instore layouts and store highlights . It saves the time of students as well as physical space otherwise used for the mock-ups to visualize ideas, thus giving them the opportunity to experiment with different design principles that would best serve the target audience of their design. Also, draft work can be saved in the system for future amendments and comments. The system provides a learning record of the idea generation process. Since the VM course requires a significant amount of space to store mock-up displays and space is limited on campus, the upgraded virtual display platform will help to solve the problem of insufficient space to store the mock-up displays.

An interactive approach has been designed and applied to teach VM. Students are required to develop a store layout plan and interior design for various types of fashion retailers by using the virtual store layout platform. The approach allows students to design window displays as well as store layouts, where the arrangement of store fixtures and fittings, highlights and the lighting requirements inside a store can be easily manipulated . Apart from saving on storage space and the amendment ability of the virtual display platform, students can also obtain online, real-time feedback from their peers and instructor by using the display and discussion blog on the platform. Each group is required to complete a creative learning journal to record their observations, inspirations, problems, and feelings throughout the process, which would be used to evaluate the outcome, along with focus group discussions to gain an understanding of the impact of this integrated approach on the creative process of students . They are also required to submit store models to evaluate the execution of their ideas. Finally, their works have been shared and showcased with the public in the "A Journey with Visual Merchandising in Hong Kong" exhibition. 

The results show that the interactive integrated approach systematically assists students in developing creative ideas. This is important for teaching students without a design background. The students find it easier to develop new ideas since they can view the works of senior students for reference purposes on the online store layout library and visualize the three dimensional effect of the store on the store layout platform without the need to create store models beforehand. This saves much resources and storage space which would be otherwise required in the making of a physical model in the idea development stage. Also, they can edit their ideas by retrieving their works from the virtual display platform and communicate with the instructor through the online discussion blog. It is recommended that a systematic approach be applied to teaching creative subjects to non-design students. Visual references, concept visualization and interactive feedback from instructor should be given at every stage of the development process to enhance the confidence of the students in carrying out new ideas.

Outcomes & Deliverables:

• Virtual Store Layout Platform for Developing Store Layout and Interior Highlights (Visual Fashion Merchandising)
• An Online Store Layout Library for Visual Fashion Merchandising
• Exhibition of a Journey with Visual Merchandising in Hong Kong in the Fashion Gallery, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
• Law, D., Yip, J., Cheung, C., & Wong, C. (2013). Stimulating process of idea generation in Hong Kong university students: The Fashion Visual Merchandising experience. Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, 12(1), 101-119.
• Law, D. (2015). From theory to reality: Enhancing creativity and achievements of Hong Kong students through online design platform and consideration of culture. Paper presented at the 7th Asian Conference on Education, Kobe, Japan.