Mental imagery is a very important part of the design, and each of us experiences it. But surprisingly, the literature on design research does not offer insights on the creative use of imagery in design. An important question is: how does mental imagery affect teamwork if the partners working as a team are placed geographically apart? Does mental imagery in such a case improve the problem-solving process when the two partners exchange their image experiences? Or does it pose itself as a hindrance as the partners are unable to communicate their mental imagery to each other, blocking the process of problem solving.

This experiment was part of a series of collaborative experiments with visual designers and architects to investigate the role of mental imagery in teamwork. A pilot experiment was conducted to better understand the project and its purpose. This was very important to know how the teamwork progresses, how the mental imagery helps or hinders the teamwork, how comfortable the team members were with sharing their images and understanding each other, etc. For the experiment, two architects were invited, and an architecture problem was given to them. And there were pauses in the experiment where each participant was questioned about his or her partner's mental imagery.