DIFFERENCES IN ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF TECHNICAL SYSTEMS BY EXPERT AND NOVICE ENGINEERING DESIGNERS
Year: 2015
Editor: Christian Weber, Stephan Husung, Marco Cantamessa, Gaetano Cascini, Dorian Marjanovic, Srinivasan Venkataraman
Author: Ruckpaul, Anne; Nelius, Thomas; Matthiesen, Sven
Series: ICED
Institution: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Section: Design Theory and Research Methodology, Design Processes
Page(s): 339-348
ISBN: 978-1-904670-65-0
ISSN: 2220-4334
Abstract
A major part of daily work for engineering designers is the analysis of existing products for finding malfunctions and possibilities to improve them. The visual perception and cognition are very important. The paper focuses on differences in the perception and cognition during analysis and interpretation of technical drawing between expert and novice engineering designers. An experiment with 34 subjects, 11 novices and 23 experts, investigates those differences. For observing the input and output parameter of the perception and cognition processes, eye trackers record the point of gaze during the experiment and the subjects verbalise their thoughts. The experiment shows, the interpretation of the system differs significantly. Expert engineers analyse technical systems more in depth, interpreting the embodiment design in the context of the overall system. Novices describe systems on a surface structure of components and its functions and hardly connect the embodiment to the systems context. The findings support the development of methods for guiding novice engineering designers to interpret the embodiment design on the level of the overall system and not only on a surface level.
Keywords: Eye Tracking, Human Behaviour In Design, Design Cognition, Design Perception