Development of an evaluation framework for implementation of parametic associative methods in an industrial context

This paper presents a study of the evaluation phase of a project that developed a new method to support parametric and associative computer-aided design, PARAMASS, in an automotive design context as an example of the systematic evaluation of new methods in design research. The evaluation employed qualitative and quantitative techniques to obtain the reaction of practising designers to the new method and to identify the time benefits of the application of the method in the design of automotive engines. The paper first presents a general overview of quantitative and qualitative methods, and describes systematic evaluation approaches in other domains especially software application. It then presents the evaluation of the PARAMASS approach using qualitative evaluation based on the Goal-Question-Metric approach, questionnaires and interviews of designers, and the qualitative evaluation based on the Use Case approach. Considerations in the planning and implementation of the evaluation procedures are presented.