Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design
Collaborative engineering design is increasingly important for modern engineering practices as projects routinely require collaboration across multiple domains. Reaching shared understanding within the team is a critical factor in constructing a successful and enjoyable collaboration. One way to pro...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Design Science |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2053470125100085/type/journal_article |
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| author | Zeda Xu Nikolas Martelaro Christopher McComb |
| author_facet | Zeda Xu Nikolas Martelaro Christopher McComb |
| author_sort | Zeda Xu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Collaborative engineering design is increasingly important for modern engineering practices as projects routinely require collaboration across multiple domains. Reaching shared understanding within the team is a critical factor in constructing a successful and enjoyable collaboration. One way to promote shared understanding is through the use of design artifacts and design representations as boundary objects. Different design representations have unique characteristics that benefit the engineering design process but could also hinder the development of shared understanding. It is important to identify the limitations of the design artifacts to select the suitable design artifact for the situation and mitigate potential adverse effects, including design fixation and miscommunication. Despite previous studies’ findings, there are still unsolved questions regarding the exact effect of the modality of the design representations on the development of team-shared understanding. This work examines three types of commonly used design representations in the engineering design community, namely, textual description, hand sketch and engineering CAD model. Their unique effect on the development of shared understanding is investigated in a collaborative engineering design setting. The results indicate that the modality of the design artifact would affect the development of shared understanding, and using visual representations can yield better team outcomes regardless of the modality complexity, mainly for design structures. This work shows the importance of using the proper design representation in collaborative engineering design tasks, and such a finding is a critical and timely reminder in the current age when team interactions constantly involve text-dominant online communications. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-90d1498ebda345768b9e2e28c057b799 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2053-4701 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Design Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-90d1498ebda345768b9e2e28c057b7992025-08-20T02:36:35ZengCambridge University PressDesign Science2053-47012025-01-011110.1017/dsj.2025.10008Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering designZeda Xu0Nikolas Martelaro1Christopher McComb2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5024-7701Department of Mechanical Engineering, https://ror.org/05x2bcf33 Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, PA, USAHuman–Computer Interaction Institute, https://ror.org/05x2bcf33 Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, PA, USADepartment of Mechanical Engineering, https://ror.org/05x2bcf33 Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, PA, USACollaborative engineering design is increasingly important for modern engineering practices as projects routinely require collaboration across multiple domains. Reaching shared understanding within the team is a critical factor in constructing a successful and enjoyable collaboration. One way to promote shared understanding is through the use of design artifacts and design representations as boundary objects. Different design representations have unique characteristics that benefit the engineering design process but could also hinder the development of shared understanding. It is important to identify the limitations of the design artifacts to select the suitable design artifact for the situation and mitigate potential adverse effects, including design fixation and miscommunication. Despite previous studies’ findings, there are still unsolved questions regarding the exact effect of the modality of the design representations on the development of team-shared understanding. This work examines three types of commonly used design representations in the engineering design community, namely, textual description, hand sketch and engineering CAD model. Their unique effect on the development of shared understanding is investigated in a collaborative engineering design setting. The results indicate that the modality of the design artifact would affect the development of shared understanding, and using visual representations can yield better team outcomes regardless of the modality complexity, mainly for design structures. This work shows the importance of using the proper design representation in collaborative engineering design tasks, and such a finding is a critical and timely reminder in the current age when team interactions constantly involve text-dominant online communications.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2053470125100085/type/journal_articleDesign representationsCollaborationEngineering designComputer-aided designSketching |
| spellingShingle | Zeda Xu Nikolas Martelaro Christopher McComb Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design Design Science Design representations Collaboration Engineering design Computer-aided design Sketching |
| title | Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design |
| title_full | Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design |
| title_fullStr | Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design |
| title_full_unstemmed | Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design |
| title_short | Mind over modality? The impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design |
| title_sort | mind over modality the impact of design representation on shared understanding in collaborative student engineering design |
| topic | Design representations Collaboration Engineering design Computer-aided design Sketching |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2053470125100085/type/journal_article |
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