Proceedings of the ASME 2012 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
ASME 2012 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2012
August 12-15, 2012
[en] sketching ; prototyping ; best practice
[en] Sketching and prototyping of design concepts have long been valued as tools to support productive early stage design. This study investigates previous findings about the use and timing of use of such design tools. This study considers such tools in the context of team design projects. General trends and statistically significant results about “sketchstorming” and prototyping suggest that, in certain constrained contexts, the focus should be on the quality of information rather than on the quantity of information generated, and that prototyping should begin as soon as possible during the design process. Ramifications of these findings are discussed in the context of educating future designers on the efficient use of design tools.
The work described in this paper was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Award CMMI-1130791; by the IK Investment Fund / The League of Finnish American Societies, the Fulbright-Technology Industries of Finland Grant co-funded with the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, the Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation grant (for Anders Häggman) and by the Belgian American Education Foundation (for Catherine Elsen).