The Sketch Power to Support Product Design

Revisiting how and why sketching delivers in the first section of this paper, we discuss how sketching supports the reactive mode of thinking and fits well with the design process. We then move on to the reasons and the potentials of sketching contributing to proactive mode of thinking, where designer react to his own sketches, thus leading to new thinking directions and more new sketches. The paper shows why, Designer reacting to his own sketched-­‐world can potentially lead to his movement towards being proactive. In the second section, we focus on designer's strange sketching behavior, which, on the face of it, appears to defy logic. Designers don't seem to wait till they understand the problem fully. They make a beginning and get into the act of sketching and use it to understand the design problem! We also looked at how they seem to search for solution through rather aimless activity like doodling and why it actually works. Designer's unusual approach is based on operative words and phrases like 'open mind'; 'innocence'; 'unrestrained optimism' and ability to keep the problem at the 'back of the mind', attributes that are naturally associated with art. Some of these practices appear strange and irrational to other disciplines, but in creative design and in art, these are not unusual. It is

2000

A drawing centered view of design process focuses on the interplay between designer expertise, domain knowledge and media manipulation. We report on computational sketching software systems we have implemented to support recording, reasoning, and resolving in design.

Design Studies, 2003

International Journal of Architectural Computing, 2005

An assessment of the effectiveness of sketch representations in early stage digital design IJAC 3-1 body 7/4/05 3:55 pm Page 109 An assessment of the effectiveness of sketch representations in early stage digital design ᭡ Figure 7. Non-photorealistic representation.

Nordic Design Research Conference

This paper examines how the role of sketching in design process has been disseminated previously through a review of prior perspectives into the field. We identify that the studies of design sketching has been dominated by two perspectives: studies into what is known as 'visual thinking' (Goldschmidt 1991, Schön & Wiggins 1992, Tversky et al. 1999), which examines the designers reflective conversation with the sketch, and a second perspective on sketching as way of 'visual communication' with others in the design process (Lugt 2005, Schütze 2003, Buxton 2010). We raise the question of whether it is reasonable to combine the two different roles of sketching to form a more intertwined relationship-seeing the two as sides of the same coin. Based on the terminology of Olofsson & Sjöflen (2005) four functions are identified as being representative for the different roles sketching can take in the design process: investigative, explorative, communicative, and persuasive. We appropriate these categories into a tension field, reflecting how the role of the same sketch may change over the course of time in the design project, based upon the type of knowledge required to gain from the sketch at a given time.

Foundations and Trends® in Human–Computer Interaction, 2007

Computational support for sketching is an exciting research area at the intersection of design research, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. Despite the prevalence of software tools, most designers begin their work with physical sketches. Modern computational tools largely treat design as a linear process beginning with a specific problem and ending with a specific solution. Sketch-based design tools offer another approach that may fit design practice better. This review surveys literature related to such tools. First, we describe the practical basis of sketching-why people sketch, what significance it has in design and problem solving, and the cognitive activities it supports. Second, we survey computational support for sketching, including methods for performing sketch recognition and managing ambiguity, techniques for modeling recognizable elements, and humancomputer interaction techniques for working with sketches. Last, we propose challenges and opportunities for future advances in this field. Sketching allows people to give form to notions that are otherwise imaginary; the act of seeing fuels the process of reasoning. The term "sketch" is used in many ways in vernacular and academic work. Some speak of sketching as a process-we sketch out an idea by talking about it, drawing pictures, or play-acting while considering possible solutions or problem formulations. Alternately we may use the term "sketch" to mean the product of an exploration, as when we make a prototype out of modeling clay, cardboard, or code. In this survey, we define a sketch based on the utility handmade drawings afford: sketches are quickly made depictions that facilitate visual thinking. In this way, sketches may include everything from doodles to roughly drawn circuit diagrams to an architect's quick isometric projection. We restrict neither the drawing medium nor the subject matter. Sketches are most often two-dimensional graphic depictions, but often incorporate textual annotations. Sketching has been a topic of interest to computer scientists and HCI practitioners for quite some time. Early efforts such as Sketchpad [161] and GRAIL [39] hinted at the potential of pen-based interfaces. In fact, many of today's sketch-related research challenges were suggested by these systems 45 years ago. Recently there has been a recurrence of interest in supporting sketching with computation. Computers can recognize user input and let people interact with drawings in ways that are impossible with paper alone, augmenting the sketching process in various ways. A rough sketch may contain enough information to infer the user's intentions. The drawing could then come alive, for example providing a simulation. Alternately the user's sketch may serve as a search query. Beyond recognition, a computer can render, rectify, or beautify a user's sketchy input into some other representation. Computation also supports editing operations that are impossible with physical sketches, for example, enabling collaborators in different locations to share an electronic drawing surface. Researchers from many disciplines have contributed to knowledge about sketching and computational techniques for supporting it. Their diversity makes it difficult to get a complete sense of what has been done on this topic. This review draws from journals, conference proceedings, 1.3 Research Themes in Sketch-Based Interaction This review details the primary themes of research shown in Figure 1.4: support for design, hardware, sketch recognition, and human-computer interaction techniques. Traditional sketching: (Section 2) Sketching plays a crucial role in the practice of design. Sketching helps designers think about problems and offers an inexpensive but effective way to communicate ideas to others. The practice of sketching is nearly ubiquitous: One recent study of interaction designers and HCI practitioners found that 97% of those surveyed began projects by sketching [116]. We must understand the purpose and practice of sketching as it is done without computation if

Engineering Design Graphics Journal, 2009

This paper explores the sketching behavior of designers and the role of sketching in the design process. Observations from a descriptive study of sketches provided in design journals, characterized by a protocol measuring sketching activities, are presented. A distinction is made between journals that are entirely tangible and those that contain some digitally-produced content ("hybrid journals"). The trend between 2004 and 2006 is an increase in both the average number of sketches as well as in the percentage of 3D sketches for hybrid journals. In 2004, tangible journals exhibited a higher average number of sketches over hybrid journals in the user needs and conceptual design stages, but this trend reversed in 2006 where hybrid journals favored more sketches at all design stages. Text was the predominant form of annotation used (ranging from 62-98%), as opposed to dimensions or calculations for both journal types. The industrial design students had significantly more sketches overall and a higher percentage of 3D sketches. They also tended to annotate more in hybrid journals over tangible journals.

Nordic Design Conference 2015 (Accepted)

This paper examines how the role of sketching in design process has been disseminated previously through a review of prior perspectives into the field. We identify that the studies of design sketching has been dominated by two perspectives: studies into what is known as ‘visual thinking’ (Goldschmidt 1991, Schön & Wiggins 1992, Tversky et al. 1999), which examines the designers reflective conversation with the sketch, and a second perspective on sketching as way of ‘visual communication’ with others in the design process (Lugt 2005, Schütze 2003, Buxton 2010). We raise the question of whether it is reasonable to combine the two different roles of sketching to form a more intertwined relationship - seeing the two as sides of the same coin. Based on the terminology of Olofsson & Sjöflen (2005) four functions are identified as being representative for the different roles sketching can take in the design process: investigative, explorative, communicative, and persuasive. We appropriate these categories into a tension field, reflecting how the role of the same sketch may change over the course of time in the design project, based upon the type of knowledge required to gain from the sketch at a given time.

of the paper 1 In the earlier paper, we started with a hypothesis that sketching delivers because of the way designers handle, use and 'misuse' it. This paper investigates 'How?' and 'Why?' it delivers. It appears that designers get much more out of the act of sketching than their planned functions permit. Designers seem to exploit this fully. When working with spatial problems, the kind that designers encounter, we saw that motoric actions in form of hand and body movements play important role. These actions often manifest in form of accompanying gestures. The act of sketching can be seen as a class of gestures that pins down the designer to 2D and/or 3D space. That is why we treated sketching as planned gestures that help designer think and conceptualize in space. Sketches also offer a depictive display. Designers treat this display to react, update and interact with them. They treat the displays as soft, pliable and so quickly updatable. Occasionally, designers distance themselves from the sketches to review them dispassionately. Switching the roles between the creator and critic, they even hold meaningful conversation with these sketches. So far we have attributed these potentials to the designer's abilities to exploit sketching. Designers are not alone in this. Much of this behavior could be traced back to practices in visual arts from which designers