Visualization Tool
A digital sketching tool to enable interdisciplinary creatives to share and visualize ideas
RESEARCH PROCESS
40+ articles and blogs
6+ interviews
Gesture analysis
Secondary source research in the disciplines of industrial design, design engineering, design management, human computer interaction and design studies
Interviews with professional designers working in various roles - consulting, tool manufacturing companies and a hardware technology company.
Task analysis of 10 students across different disciplines performing gestural and verbal descriptions of visuals/objects.
“Visualizing ideas with people from different disciplines in a collaborative setting can be challenging!”
- Concept Designer, Power tool manufacturing company
SPECIFIC CHALLENGES RECOGNIZED
Reaching a shared understanding of potential concepts can be challenging
Derived criteria: 3D visualization to support clear communication
More skilled collaborators may tend to dominate the visualization activity
Derived criteria: Support for varying approaches and a quick learning curve
Collaborators wish to be able to iterate and make quick changes to prototypes
Derived criteria: Support for easy manipulations and changes
Visualizations of high fidelity can cause attachment to concepts at early stages
Derived criteria: Support for loose visualization and varying levels of fidelity
CURRENT AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
2D digital and analog sketching
Difficult learning curve
No visualization in 3D
CAD software
Difficult learning curve
No support for 'loose visualization'
Time taking to produce
VR and AR based tools
Face to face interaction and other activities can be hindered
Expensive to procure for multiple users
TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS
allowing other collaborative tasks
digital
economical
such as face to face communication and analog note taking
to integrate with modern workflows and allow for easy integration into manufacturing stages
to allow for high accessibility and adoption of the solution, hence utilizing either existing hardware or adding minimum hardware
CONCEPTUALIZATION AND PROTOTYPING
Selected concepts were prototyped as video animations
This was used to collect feedback was collected from multiple professional designers from a 3rd person point of view to get a sense of which concepts could add most value.
FEEDBACK COLLECTION
ASSISTING DEPTH PERCEPTION
To tackle challenges associated with depth perception while using the chosen concept - to enable users to better map 3D hand movements onto a 2D display - multiple tools and strategies were ideated and researched. Two of the most promising strategies were prototyped as interactions on Unity using a Leap Motion controller. Based on user feedback, one strategy was incorporated into the final concept.
GESTURE + VERBAL ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT COLLABORATORS
To understand the tendencies and preferences of collaborators from different disciplines during a visualization activity, 10 students across the disciplines of design, engineering, fine art, management and marketing were asked to do a visualization activity. They were asked to describe images of different 3 dimensional forms and rudimentary shapes using gestures and words. Insights from a video analysis of this activity were used to inform specific features of the final concept.
Level of detail
Some sought to achieve basic outlines of shapes, whereas others went into more details of features. This prompted features in the solution which allow collaborators to create general suggestions which can be detailed and elaborated by another collaborator.
Approach used to create shapes
In some cases, defining splines were made before creating surfaces, and in other cases, volumes were created directly. One student also used a shadow-puppet like approach to create the shape by forming his hand.
Common gestures and verbal descriptors
Some gestures that were common were modified to be used as actions in the solution. Phrases that were used to describe actions suggested the kinds of operations the tools should afford. Existing objects were often used as visual references which prompted a reference board feature in the tool.
FINAL CONCEPT
ADVANTAGES AND FEATURES
Convenient 3D visualization without hindering face to face communication and other physical tasks like note taking
Convenient creation and manipulation of rudimentary shapes
Utilization of gestures and actions natural to collaborators
AI based reference board for open source images and CAD files
Commenting modes
Disappearing trace mode to allow collaborators to make visual suggestions
