Artifacts Supporting Distributed Design Collaboration
DS 81: Proceedings of NordDesign 2014, Espoo, Finland 27-29th August 2014
Year: 2014
Editor: Miko Laakso, Kalevi Ekman
Author: Alahuhta, Pekka; Vartiainen, Matti
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: Aalto University, Finland
Section: Collaboration, communication and co-creation in design and development
Page(s): 223-232
ISBN: 978-1-904670-58-2
Abstract
This study addresses the mechanisms by which collaboration environments affect design teams’ collaboration via shared artefacts. We collected data by observing design teams consisting of experts and decision makers. The teams utilized (1) a state-of-the-art web conferencing collaboration environment and (2) a three-dimensional virtual world in their collaboration. Our analysis reveals the virtual worlds’ potential to foster the use of pictorial documents as design teams’ shared artefacts. In addition, our study embraces the web conferencing tool’s potential to nourish interaction on the basis of written artefacts. The findings contribute towards distributed design research, describing the role of design artefacts, and describing ways, how different collaboration environments can support distributed design teamwork.
Keywords: Design artefacts, distributed design, virtual worlds