TY - JOUR
T1 - A diary study of information needs and document usage in the engineering domain
AU - Wild, P.J.
AU - McMahon, C.
AU - Darlington, M.
AU - Liu, S.
AU - Culley, S.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Engineering design, despite its technical mechanical and mathematical foundations, is heavily informational. Many authors have used information as the focus of their research; in contrast, our study examined both information needs and document usage by engineers. After reviewing the design decisions behind the diary study; we report on the analysis of the data. We also used the data to generate new ‘document use’ scenarios, and ‘proof of concept’ test of a related software system. As with all research methods, diary studies have a number of strengths and weaknesses so we also provide some reflections on the use of diary studies as a method for examining the engineer's use of documents in the engineering domain.
AB - Engineering design, despite its technical mechanical and mathematical foundations, is heavily informational. Many authors have used information as the focus of their research; in contrast, our study examined both information needs and document usage by engineers. After reviewing the design decisions behind the diary study; we report on the analysis of the data. We also used the data to generate new ‘document use’ scenarios, and ‘proof of concept’ test of a related software system. As with all research methods, diary studies have a number of strengths and weaknesses so we also provide some reflections on the use of diary studies as a method for examining the engineer's use of documents in the engineering domain.
U2 - 10.1016/j.destud.2009.06.002
DO - 10.1016/j.destud.2009.06.002
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
SN - 0142-694X
VL - 31
SP - 46
EP - 73
JO - Design Studies
JF - Design Studies
IS - 1
ER -