An interdisciplinary review of literature relevant to collaborative design is used as a basis to propose a taxonomy for the classification of collaborative design situations. The taxonomy includes top-level attributes of team composition, communication, distribution, design approach, information, and nature of the problem. Three taxonomic-oriented measures are introduced and used to evaluate the taxonomy: orthogonality, completeness, and usability. This taxonomy is an initial step towards the creation of new agent-based collaborative support tools structured upon a fundamental understanding of the collaborative process with a theoretical foundation. More significantly, the taxonomy provides a valuable way of organising the research literature in collaborative design that is at present dispersed across many domains and disciplines.
This study presents a new model for collaborative design that is analogous to electrical circuits with current (rate of design artifact synthesis and analysis), voltage (knowledge that drives the design process), and resistance (barriers to the exchange of design information). An electric analogy is used to capture the flow of information throughout the design process, it maps well to existing models of collaboration, and it provides a mechanism to capture resistances to flow. Specifically, the resistances are identified from a collaborative design taxonomy. Currently, these resistances are qualitatively captured based upon empirical evidence, but they may in the future be calibrated with additional experimental investigations. The model is illustrated through a simple example. Extensions and an assessment of the model are provided.
A taxonomy that classifies issues affecting the collaborative design process is proposed. These factors, which may inhibit or facilitate the progress or success of a design team, provide a description of collaborative design situations. The taxonomy includes top-level attributes of team composition, communication, distribution, design approach, information, and nature of the problem. An example collaborative design situation is used to illustrate the application of the taxonomy. This taxonomy is an initial step towards the creation of new collaborative support agent-based tools structured upon a fundamental understanding of the collaborative process with a theoretical foundation.
It is necessary for product teams with diverse expertise to communicate during the product development process, notably during design reviews. As this expertise may be distributed across different geographic locations of an organization, design review teams are facing new challenges in effective communication. This paper presents the results of a controlled user study devised to examine the effectiveness of various communication methods for design reviews. Speech only, text only, and free communication methods were chosen to simulate current technologies commonly used in situations of geographic distribution. Primary results from the study include: group design reviews were approximately twice as effective as individual design reviews; free communication produced greater perceived effectiveness than speech only communication, speech only communication produced greater perceived effectiveness than text only communication; and certain personality factors, such as extroversion and intuition, may have contributed to higher productivity in design review teams.
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