Edinburgh Napier University

  Currently many computer-aided multi-modal interaction tools are under development, and some have demonstrated their applications in design. To avoid disruptive transformation from current design tools to multi-modal designing, there is a need for several descriptive studies to understand commonly used interaction modes in design. To understand how gestures are amalgamated in collaborative design while using current design tools, a set of laboratory experiments were conducted with a pair of designers working together to solve a design problem. The two objectives of this paper are: 1. Which interaction mode, among verbal, gestural, textual, graphical, and combination of these, dominates in collaborative designing? and 2. How do these interaction modes change across design stages (requirement identification, development of preliminary concepts, concepts elaboration, evaluation, and detailing of chosen concepts)? The results aim to provide directions to develop new design tools which are aligned with designer’s current interaction patterns as observed in using conventional CAD design tools.