Designing with lego: Exploring the influence of low fidelity visualisation on collaborative design activities

Charlie Ranscombe*, Katherine Bissett-Johnson, Duncan Boa, Ben Hicks

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Sketches, cardboard mock-ups, and digital modelling software are typical media at a designer's disposal for visualising and evaluating ideas. Recent research indicates the benefits of using such media with a limited level of detail (low fidelity) when representing designer's concepts. Similarly LEGO has gained traction as a visualisation media in co-design and strategy building contexts, where its low fidelity is key to communication across different disciplines. The research in this paper compares LEGO with traditional visualisation media (sketching, cardboard mock-ups and CAD) to understand its influence on collaboration . An experiment was conducted where teams of industrial designers were given a short design task for which to develop solutions using different visualisation media. Results from the study showed that teams using lower fidelity visualisation engaged in more collaborative behaviour than those using traditional media and generated more ideas. This suggests that there are benefits to constraining the level of detail in visualisation media for concept generation during early stages of design process.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED
Pages269-278
Number of pages10
Volume8
EditionDS87-8
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED
ISSN (Print)2220-4334

Keywords

  • Collaborative design
  • Design practice
  • Industrial design
  • LEGO
  • Visualisation media

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