scholarly journals Evaluating Wikis as a Communicative Medium for Collaboration Within Colocated and Distributed Engineering Design Teams

2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolynn J. Walthall ◽  
Srikanth Devanathan ◽  
Lorraine G. Kisselburgh ◽  
Karthik Ramani ◽  
E. Daniel Hirleman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Distributed Teams ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
And Performance

Wikis, freely editable collections of web pages, exhibit potential for a flexible documentation and communication tool for collaborative design tasks as well as support for team design thinking early in the design process. The purpose of this work is to analyze dimensions of wiki technologies from a communication perspective as applicable to design. A wiki was introduced in a globally distributed product development course, and the experiences and performance of colocated and distributed teams in the course were assessed through observations, surveys, and site usage analytics. With a focus on communication in design, we explore the advantages and disadvantages of using wikis in student engineering design teams. Our goal is to use wiki technologies to enhance support for design processes while exploiting the potential for increasing shared understanding among teams. Distributed teams used the wiki more as a design tool and were more supportive of its use in the course whereas colocated teams used it for documentation. The usage patterns, the number and type of files uploaded, and the wiki structure provided indicators of better performing teams. The findings also suggest ways to improve and inform students about best practices using the wiki for design and to transform the wiki as a support tool for communication during early design collaboration.

A Perspective for Evaluating Wikis as a Medium for Communication Within Engineering Design Teams

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolynn J. Walthall ◽  
Srikanth Devanathan ◽  
Lorraine Kisselburgh ◽  
Karthik Ramani ◽  
E. Daniel Hirleman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Design Collaboration

Wikis, freely editable collections of web pages, are showing potential for a flexible documentation and communication tool for collaborative design tasks. They also provide a medium that can be further transformed by properly understanding both the need for flexibility as well as support for design thinking early in the design process. The purpose of this work is to analyze the different dimensions of the wiki from a communication perspective as applicable to design. With a focus on communication in design, we will explore the advantages and disadvantages of using wikis in student engineering design teams. Our ultimate goal is to better support the design process while exploiting the potential for increasing the shared understanding among teams using a wiki. By introducing a wiki in a globally distributed product development course, students gain hands-on experience in using wikis as a design tool. Feedback from students will be collected through questionnaires and used to improve and transform the wiki as a support tool for communication during early design collaboration.

Applying Equity Design to Address Oakland’s Homelessness Human Rights Crisis

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia KRAMER ◽  
Julia KONG ◽  
Brooke STATON ◽  
Pierce GORDON
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
Collaborative Efforts ◽  
Typical Design

In this case study, we present a project of Reflex Design Collective, an experimental social equity design consultancy based in Oakland, California. Since founding Reflex Design Collective four years ago, we have reimagined the role of “designers” to transform relationships structured by oppression. To illustrate this reimagination, we present a case study of our work as ecosystem-shifters. In 2017, we facilitated a co-design innovation summit where unhoused Oakland residents led collaborative efforts to alleviate the burdens of homelessness, with city staff and housed residents serving as allies instead of experts. Our approach to design facilitation differs from a typical design thinking process by pairing our clients with those on the front-lines of social inequity in a collaborative design process. Specifically, we elevate the importance of democratized design teams, contextualized design challenges, and ongoing reflection in a design process. We highlight successes of our design facilitation approach in the Oakland homelessness summit, including outcomes and areas for improvement. We then draw higher-level key learnings from our work that are translatable to designers and managers at large. We believe our approach to equity design will provide managers and designers an alternative mindset aimed to amplify the voices of marginalized groups and stakeholders.

scholarly journals A novel systematic method to evaluate computer-supported collaborative design technologies

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-81
Author(s):  
R. Brisco ◽  
R. I. Whitfield ◽  
H. Grierson
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Text Processing ◽  
Technology Selection ◽  
Design Activity ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Systematic Method ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract Selection of suitable computer-supported collaborative design (CSCD) technologies is crucial to facilitate successful projects. This paper presents the first systematic method for engineering design teams to evaluate and select the most suitable CSCD technologies comparing technology functionality and project requirements established in peer-reviewed literature. The paper first presents 220 factors that influence successful CSCD. These factors were then systematically mapped and categorised to create CSCD requirement statements. The novel evaluation and selection method incorporates these requirement statements within a matrix and develops a discourse analysis text processing algorithm with data from collaborative projects to automate the population of how technologies impact the success of CSCD in engineering design teams. This method was validated using data collected across 3 years of a student global design project. The impact of this method is the potential to change the way engineering design teams consider the technology they use and how the selection of appropriate tools impacts the success of their CSCD projects. The development of the CSCD evaluation matrix is the first of its kind enabling a systematic and justifiable comparison and technology selection, with the aim of best supporting the engineering designers collaborative design activity.

scholarly journals High School Student Engineering Design Thinking and Performance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Becker ◽  
Nathan Mentzer ◽  
Kyungsuk Park ◽  
Shaobo Huang
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
High School Student ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
And Performance

scholarly journals Combining scientific approaches in building science and architectural design in academia: A case study

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-135
Author(s):  
U. Pont ◽  
S. Swoboda ◽  
A. Jonas ◽  
F. Waldmayer ◽  
P. Schober ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Environmental Control ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Performance Modelling ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
And Performance

A successful coupling of architectural design with multi-aspect building performance assessment is a complex, but necessary requirement for today’s building planning- and retrofit-activities. Architects are required to not only possess the vocabulary and basic knowledge in multiple fields, but must also work in collaborative design teams, composed of different domain specialists (e.g., structural engineers and building simulation experts). However, training in collaborative work is rarely provided in academic surroundings. In this contribution, we describe an educational effort toward interdisciplinary work on a specific and clearly defined architectural design task, which strongly necessitates the consideration of performance mandates. The task is the retrofit and redesign of an existing building façade from the 1950s. “Rationalist” buildings of this period often display reasonable functional solutions and good daylight availability, but they have performance shortcomings in other areas. These encompass, for instance, poor thermal performance of the envelope, lack of sufficient indoor environmental control, and unsatisfactory overall appearance. In a combined design studio and project course for building performance modelling, students from different disciplinary backgrounds formed interdisciplinary design teams. These teams worked together on façade retrofit ideas for the aforementioned building, considering both aesthetic aspects and performance issues from the very first design sketch. This led to the development and performance evaluation of a number of original façade retrofit ideas. In addition, the students were asked to devise the building process management. They thus had to consider not only design issues, but practical matters of building construction. The present contribution illustrates the scope, the applied approaches, and the concrete results of this interdisciplinary academic effort.

Analysis of Collaborative Design Networks: A Case Study of OpenIDEO

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Fuge ◽  
Kevin Tee ◽  
Alice Agogino ◽  
Nathan Maton
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Network Formation ◽  
Collaborative Networks ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Design Exploration ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Core

This paper presents a large-scale empirical study of OpenIDEO, an online collaborative design community. Using network analysis techniques, we describe the properties of this collaborative design network and discuss how it differs from common models of network formation seen in other social or technological networks. One major finding is that in OpenIDEO's social network the highly connected members talk more to less connected members than each other—a behavior not commonly found in other social and collaborative networks. We discuss how some of the interventions and incentives inherent in OpenIDEO's platform might cause this unique structure, and what advantages and disadvantages this structure has for coordinating distributed design teams. Specifically, its core-periphery structure is robust to network changes, but is at risk of decreasing design exploration ability if the core becomes too heavily clustered or loses efficiency. We discuss possible interventions that can prevent this outcome: encouraging core members to collaborate with periphery nodes, and increasing the diversity of the user population.

Establishing a Protocol to Observe Leadership Behaviors Within Engineering Design Teams

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug Chickarello ◽  
James Righter ◽  
Apurva Patel ◽  
Joshua D. Summers
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Interrater Reliability ◽  
Design Space ◽  
Leadership Behaviors ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Rater Agreement ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Student Team

The purpose of this study is to establish a protocol capable of identifying functional leadership behaviors in engineering design teams. The protocol is developed from a literature review that includes general leadership theory and research performed on collaborative design teams. Three different raters applied the leadership protocol to a video recording of a graduate student team performing a function structure modeling activity. The results of the study demonstrate that the protocol has a high amount of intra-rater agreement and an acceptable level of interrater reliability. Additionally, the pilot study revealed that clarification and refinement of the protocol with respect to leader/follower behaviors can improve rater agreement. Finally, changes to the protocol are proposed to map leadership behaviors to the design space the team is working in and the design activities that the team is performing.

Can a House Without a Foundation Support Design?

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Olewnik ◽  
Kemper Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
House Of Quality ◽  
Support Design ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Engineering Design Process

The House of Quality is a popular tool that supports information processing and decision making in the engineering design process. While its application is an aid in conceptual aspects of the design process, its use as a quantitative decision support tool in engineering design is potentially flawed. This flaw is a result of assumptions behind the methodology of the House of Quality and is viewed as an important deficiency that can lead to potentially invalid and poor decisions. In this paper this deficiency and its implications are explored both experimentally and empirically. The resulting conclusions are important to future use and improvement of the House of Quality as an engineering design tool.

Mixed quantitative/qualitative method for evaluating compromise solutions to conflicts in collaborative design

1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Bahler ◽  
Catherine Dupont ◽  
James Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Concurrent Engineering ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Bounded Domains ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Compromise Solution ◽  
Compromise Solutions

AbstractConflicts are likely to arise among participants in a collaborative design process as the inevitable outgrowth of the differing perspectives and viewpoints involved. The opportunities for conflict are magnified if many perspectives are brought to bear on a common artifact early in the design process, as in concurrent engineering or integrated engineering. Design advice tools can assist in the process of resolving these conflicts by making critiques and suggestions conveniently available to design participants, and by offering a fair means of evaluating and comparing suggested alternatives for compromise solution. In previous work we introduced a protocol based on notions of economic utility by which design advice systems can recognize conflict and mediate negotiation fairly. This protocol allowed design teams to express the desire to maximize or minimize the values of design parameters over totally ordered bounded domains of values, such as real numeric intervals. In this paper we extend this approach by allowing expressed preferences of design teams to be qualitative as well as quantitative, by allowing teams to express interest in parameters before they actually come into existence, and by relaxing many other of the earlier restrictions on the ways teams may express their preferences.

scholarly journals Extracting and Analysing Design Process Data from Log Files of ICT Supported Co-Creative Sessions

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niccolo' Becattini ◽  
Gaetano Cascini ◽  
Jamie Alexander O'Hare ◽  
Federico Morosi ◽  
Jean-Francois Boujut
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Process Data ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Log Files ◽  
Simulated Environment ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Design Support Tool

AbstractThe observation of designers' behaviour in collaborative design activities and the analysis of protocols improved the understanding of how novel ideas emerge, what occurs among designers and, indirectly, what methods have a good impact on the outcomes. Yet, protocol analysis requires recording the design sessions, often in a simulated environment, thus introducing a bias in the observation. Moreover, the analysis takes up to 1000 times the duration of the observed design session. These limitations definitely hinder the scalability of this practice to large experiments in real operational environments.This paper investigates the possibility to use the data collected in log files, automatically recorded during collaborative design sessions assisted by an ICT design support tool, as a means to extract relevant information about the design process and ultimately to infer insights about co-designers' cognition during the session. In this perspective, the paper proposes a set of metrics tailored to an Augmented Reality-based collaborative design tool. The study has been carried about by processing the data collected in 5 real case studies conducted in three different design companies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document