Collaborative Sketching With skWiki: A Case Study

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Senthil Chandrasegaran ◽  
Sriram Karthik Badam ◽  
Zhenpeng Zhao ◽  
Niklas Elmqvist ◽  
Lorraine Kisselburgh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Research Tool ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Computational Tools ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Collaborative Exploration ◽  
Collaborative Sketching

Sketching for conceptual design has traditionally been performed on paper. Recent computational tools for conceptual design have leveraged the availability of hand-held computing devices and web-based collaborative platforms. Further, digital sketching interfaces have the added advantages of storage, duplication, and sharing on the web. We have developed skWiki, a tool that enables collaborative sketching on digital tablets using a web-based framework. We evaluate skWiki in two contexts, (a) as a collaborative ideation tool, and (b) as a design research tool. For this evaluation, we perform a longitudinal study of an undergraduate design team that used skWiki over the course of the concept generation and development phase of their course project. Our analysis of the team’s sketching activity indicated instances of lateral and vertical transformation between participants, indicating collaborative exploration of the breadth and depth of the design space. Using skWiki for this evaluation also demonstrated it to be an effective research tool to investigate such collaborative design processes.

A Computational Technique for Concept Generation

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cari R. Bryant ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams ◽  
Robert B. Stone ◽  
Tolga Kurtoglu ◽  
Matthew I. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Morphological Analysis ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Computational Technique ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Computational Tools ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase ◽  
Innate Ability

Few computational tools exist to assist designers during the conceptual phase of design, and design success is often heavily weighted on personal experience and innate ability. Many well-known methods (e.g. brainstorming, intrinsic and extrinsic searches, and morphological analysis) are designed to stimulate a designer’s creativity, but ultimately still rely heavily on individual bias and experience. Under the premise that quality designs comes from experienced designers, experience in the form of design knowledge is extracted from existing products and stored for reuse in a web-based repository. This paper presents an automated concept generation tool that utilizes the repository of existing design knowledge to generate and evaluate conceptual design variants. This tool is intended to augment traditional conceptual design phase activities and produce numerous feasible concepts early in the design process.

Agent-based Collaboration Between Distributed Web Applications: Case Study on 'Collaborative Design for X' Using CyberCO

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 279-290
Author(s):  
G Q Huang ◽  
K L Mak
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Web Applications ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Prototype System ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Systems Collaboration

This paper presents a case study on the collaboration between a set of distributed web applications developed and deployed for carrying out a 'Design for Assembly' analysis. The case study is conducted using a web-based prototype system called CyberCO. The system is based on a theoretical framework which has been formed through an innovative combination of a number of concepts such as agents and workflows. Unlike previous attempts in computer supported concurrent engineering systems, collaboration in this framework between distributed web applications is achieved through workflows between their representative agents. The flows of data between agents are guided by the associated constraints. The flows of controls are somewhat data-driven in the sense that agents start and stop themselves whenever the predefined conditions are satisfied. The data-driven flows of controls are different from those widely used in workflow management where flows of controls are determined by the precedence relationships. The key purpose of this case study demonstration is to extend our knowledge and insights into this emerging field where increasing number of web applications are developed and deployed for collaborative product development and realization projects.

scholarly journals Protobooth: gathering and analyzing data on prototyping in early-stage engineering design projects by digitally capturing physical prototypes

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Jorgen F. Erichsen ◽  
Heikki Sjöman ◽  
Martin Steinert ◽  
Torgeir Welo
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Research Tool ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
New Research

Abstract Aiming to help researchers capture output from the early stages of engineering design projects, this article presents a new research tool for digitally capturing physical prototypes. The motivation for this work is to collect observations that can aid in understanding prototyping in the early stages of engineering design projects, and this article investigates if and how digital capture of physical prototypes can be used for this purpose. Early-stage prototypes are usually rough and of low fidelity and are thus often discarded or substantially modified through the projects. Hence, retrospective access to prototypes is a challenge when trying to gather accurate empirical data. To capture the prototypes developed through the early stages of a project, a new research tool has been developed for capturing prototypes through multi-view images, along with metadata describing by whom, why, when, and where the prototypes were captured. Over the course of 17 months, this research tool has been used to capture more than 800 physical prototypes from 76 individual users across many projects. In this article, one project is shown in detail to demonstrate how this capturing system can gather empirical data for enriching engineering design project cases that focus on prototyping for concept generation. The authors also analyze the metadata provided by the system to give understanding into prototyping patterns in the projects. Lastly, through enabling digital capture of large quantities of data, the research tool presents the foundations for training artificial intelligence-based predictors and classifiers that can be used for analysis in engineering design research.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Providing Structured Design-for-the-Environment Strategies During Conceptual Design

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Donovan Ross ◽  
Vincenzo Ferrero ◽  
Bryony DuPont
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Sustainable Design ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Specific Design ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Structured Design ◽  
Design For The Environment

Abstract The fuzzy front end of engineering design can present a difficult challenge, and as such, recent engineering design research has focused on guiding and influencing the way a designer ideates. Early ideation can be especially difficult when attempting to integrate specific design objectives in product design, called Design for X (DfX). This paper presents two experiments exploring the efficacy of a structured Design for the Environment (DfE) design method called the GREEn Quiz (Guidelines and Regulations for Early design for the Environment) that provides designers with sustainable design knowledge during the conceptual design phase. The GREEn Quiz operates on a web-based platform and queries the designer about their design concepts; an end-of-quiz report provides abstract DfE knowledge to designers. While this abstract knowledge was able to be applied by designers in a former study, we hypothesize that providing targeted, specific design strategies during conceptual design will enable novice designers to better integrate DfE. In this study, we created these DfE strategies, integrated these into the GREEn Quiz, and studied the efficacy of these strategies when presented to designers at both the expert and novice levels. Results suggest that respondents with access to the strategy-based GREEn Quiz produced concepts with evidence of more sustainable design decisions and higher solution quality scores. This work shows the promise of supplemental Design for the Environment methods for concept generation to enable the design of more environmentally sustainable products.

Sorting Results of Automated Concept Generators Based on Design for Manufacture and Assembly

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry R. Poppa ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Solution Space ◽  
New Product ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Computational Tools ◽  
Design For Manufacture ◽  
Sorting Method ◽  
Large Sets ◽  
Human Designer

Early in the design process, it is desirable to produce a large number of potential solutions. Completely exploring a problem’s solution space is an unreasonable expectation for an unaided designer or design team. Computational tools have emerged to help designers more fully explore possible solutions. These automated concept generators use knowledge from existing designs and the desired functionality of the new product to suggest solutions. Existing automated concept generation methods produce many candidate solutions, but often provide unmanageably large sets of solutions. Techniques are needed to organize the set of concepts into smaller groups, more easily parsed by the human designer. This work proceeds from the hypothesis that the utility of automated concept generators can be enhanced if their output is sorted based on design for manufacture and assembly heuristics. Data to sort concepts is collected and a sorting method is proposed. Finally a case study is presented to demonstrate the method.

A Web-Based Collaborative Evaluation Platform for Mechanical Conceptual Design

2010 ◽  
Vol 37-38 ◽  
pp. 68-72
Author(s):  
Mei Yan Wang ◽  
Lian Guan Shen ◽  
Yi Min Deng
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Design Evaluation ◽  
Design Environment ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Evaluation Platform ◽  
Collaborative Evaluation

In conceptual design, a number of design concepts and alternatives would be generated. These concepts and alternatives usually need to be evaluated to reduce the search space. However, it is not easy for the designers to determine which alternative is better, especially in the design environment where multiple designers might be involved. Current researches mainly focused on the evaluation models, but rarely provide the integrated tools to assist the evaluation process. To address this problem, we propose a web-based collaborative design evaluation platform and two evaluation principles for different evaluation situations. A design case is used to illustrate the evaluation process, where it is necessary for the designers to select a working phenomenon for the “generate force” subfunction of a nailing machine.

A Computational Approach to Conceptual Design

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeke Strawbridge ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Morphological Analysis ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Computational Approach ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Concept Selection ◽  
Computational Tools ◽  
Detail Design ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase

Design research has generated many computational tools to aid the designer over the years. Most of these tools are focused on either the preliminary steps of customer need gathering or the concluding steps of embodiment or detail design. The conceptual design phase has seen fewer computational tools even though well known methods are available such as brainstorming, intrinsic and extrinsic searches and morphological analysis. In this paper a generalized computational conceptual design tool is presented to aid designers at the conceptual design stage. It relies on storing and reusing existing design knowledge to create new concept variants. Concept variants are computed using matrix manipulations, essentially creating a mathematical morphological matrix. The concept generator produces quick concepts that can be used for concept selection or as a basis for generating additional concept variants through non-computational, creative techniques.

Collaboration versus Concreteness: Tensions in Designing for Scale

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (12) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Marisa Cannata ◽  
Tuan D. Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
School Level ◽  
School Design ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Collaborative Process ◽  
Educational Innovations

Background Substantial research on reform implementation highlights numerous challenges to implementing innovations at scale with depth and sustainability, yet new reforms continue to encounter many of the same challenges. This has led to calls for researchers to work in partnership with practitioners to design, implement, and scale educational innovations. Although these approaches hold promise, little is known about the internal operations of these improvement approaches and the experiences of their participants. Purpose Through a case study of a research–practice partnership that uses a continuous improvement approach to design and development, this article explores how the collaborative design process shaped the resulting innovation design. Research Design: This is a qualitative case study that included interviews with members of the district and school design teams, observations and field notes from design team meetings, and participant feedback forms. Findings/Results The evidence converges on three main challenges in the design process. These challenges point to tensions in maximizing all the design factors because they sometimes conflicted with each other: (1) Members were most engaged when the work was very specific and deemed feasible in a particular context, (2) Efforts to develop more specificity in the design emphasis were limited by efforts to engage educators in a collaborative process in which school-level actors had ownership over key design decisions, and (3) The abstractness of the emerging reform led to difficulties in establishing a shared deep understanding of each core component of the reform. Finally, the ability of school teams to productively resolve these tensions was related to the existing capacity of the school. Conclusions This case study of a collaborative design process in a research–practice partnership illustrates the complexities of the co-construction of a set of reform practices between researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders and highlights the need for a delicate balance between specificity of the design and local engagement. We showed how a collaborative process fostered high engagement as researchers and practitioners co-constructed the reform, and how the team struggled to define the core strategies in sufficient detail to allow for implementation planning in a way that maintained the co-constructed design. There appeared to be a tension between achieving the necessary concreteness or specificity in the reform design that would be implemented across contexts, and a process that valued local ownership and collaborative decision-making.

Form Follows Form: Fine Tuning Artificial Intelligence Methods

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt R. Bohm ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Functional Model ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
State University ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Generation Technique ◽  
Oregon State University ◽  
Answering Questions

This paper presents an updated approach to a form-based concept generation technique known as Form Follows Form (FFF). The technique allows a novice engineer or designer to use natural language to specify components envisioned within a product. Form follows form then develops the underlying functional structure by leveraging a repository of over 5500 artifacts. Existing computational conceptual design methods are then employed to automatically display a set of ranked concept alternatives to the user. Users can quickly create a functional model by specifying input components and answering questions regarding the intent of the product. In this paper we demonstrate the capabilities of the Form Follows Form method through a case study involving the redesign of a standard household fan. Through the case study it is shown that FFF is capable of suggesting creative alternatives for existing products. Additionally, we present data regarding the accuracy and usefulness of FFF gathered through a junior level design course at Oregon State University.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Providing Structured DfE Design Strategies During Conceptual Design

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donovan Ross ◽  
Vincenzo Ferrero ◽  
Bryony DuPont
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Sustainable Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Specific Design ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Design For The Environment

Abstract The fuzzy front end of engineering design can present a difficult challenge, and as such, recent engineering design research has focused on guiding and influencing the way a designer ideates. Early ideation can be especially difficult when attempting to integrate specific design objectives in product design, called Design for X (DfX). Some examples of DfX are Design for Manufacturing (DfM), Design for Assembly (DfA), Design for Function (DfF), and Design for Safety (DfS). This paper will present two experiments exploring the efficacy of a structured Design for the Environment (DfE) design method called the GREEn Quiz (Guidelines and Regulations for Early design for the Environment) that provides designers with sustainable design knowledge during the conceptual design phase. The GREEn Quiz operates on a web-based platform and queries the designer about their design concepts; an end-of-quiz report provides abstract DfE knowledge to designers. While this abstract knowledge was able to be applied by designers in a former study, we hypothesize that providing targeted, specific design strategies during conceptual design may enable better integration in concept generation by novice designers. In this study, we created these DfE strategies, embedded these in the GREEn Quiz, and studied the efficacy of these strategies when presented to designers at both the expert and novice levels. Experimental results suggest that respondents with access to the strategy-based GREEn Quiz produced concepts with evidence of more sustainable design decisions and higher solution quality scores when compared to previous respondents and the control groups. This research encourages the consideration of downstream environmental impact knowledge during conceptual design, resulting in lower-impact products regardless of the previous DfE expertise of the designer.

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