Output details

A taxonomic classification of visual design representations used by industrial designers and engineering designers

This paper originated from work undertaken within a PhD project that explored barriers to communication between industrial designers and engineering designers. It reports the development of a novel taxonomy for visual design representations, both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional. The research involved a comprehensive international review of visualisation techniques and substantial survey and questionnaire data collection. The use of academic research to categorise 32 types of design representations into 4 taxons (sketch, drawing, model and prototype) represented an original contribution to knowledge and the work is being cited by the design research community. The outcomes from the study went on to form the basis for an on-line design tool, called CoLab, that was funded by the UK Royal Academy of Engineering. It also contributed to a physical card-based tool, called iD Cards, that was funded and distributed by the Industrial Designers Society of America. iD Cards enables designers to quickly determine what visualisation techniques are suitable for communicating various types of information and are one this submission’s Impact Case Studies. This paper was internationally blind peer-reviewed by multiple reviewers and published in a leading academic design journal.