User-based gesture vocabulary for form creation during a product design process

There are inconsistencies between the nature of the conceptual design and the functionalities of the computational systems supporting it, which disrupt the designers’ process, focusing on technology rather than designers’ needs. A need for elicitation of hand gestures appropriate for the requirements of the conceptual design, rather than those arbitrarily chosen or focusing on ease of implementation was identified.The aim of this thesis is to identify natural and intuitive hand gestures for conceptual design, performed by designers (3rd, 4th year product design engineering students and recent graduates) working on their own, without instruction and without limitations imposed by the facilitating technology. This was done via a user centred study including 44 participants. 1785 gestures were collected. Gestures were explored as a sole mean for shape creation and manipulation in virtual 3D space. Gestures were identified, described in writing, sketched, coded based on the taxonomy used, categorised based on hand form and the path travelled and variants identified. Then they were statistically analysed to ascertain agreement rates between the participants, significance of the agreement and the likelihood of number of repetitions for each category occurring by chance. The most frequently used and statistically significant gestures formed the consensus set of vocabulary for conceptual design. The effect of the shape of the manipulated object on the gesture performed, and if the sequence of the gestures participants proposed was different from the established CAD solid modelling practices were also observed.Vocabulary was evaluated by non-designer participants, and the outcomes have shown that the majority of gestures were appropriate and easy to perform. Evaluation was performed theoretically and in the VR environment. Participants selected their preferred gestures for each activity, and a variant of the vocabulary for conceptual design was created as an outcome, that aims to ensure that extensive training is not required, extending the ability to design beyond trained designers only.There are inconsistencies between the nature of the conceptual design and the functionalities of the computational systems supporting it, which disrupt the designers’ process, focusing on technology rather than designers’ needs. A need for elicitation of hand gestures appropriate for the requirements of the conceptual design, rather than those arbitrarily chosen or focusing on ease of implementation was identified.The aim of this thesis is to identify natural and intuitive hand gestures for conceptual design, performed by designers (3rd, 4th year product design engineering students and recent graduates) working on their own, without instruction and without limitations imposed by the facilitating technology. This was done via a user centred study including 44 participants. 1785 gestures were collected. Gestures were explored as a sole mean for shape creation and manipulation in virtual 3D space. Gestures were identified, described in writing, sketched, coded based on the taxonomy used, categorised based on hand form and the path travelled and variants identified. Then they were statistically analysed to ascertain agreement rates between the participants, significance of the agreement and the likelihood of number of repetitions for each category occurring by chance. The most frequently used and statistically significant gestures formed the consensus set of vocabulary for conceptual design. The effect of the shape of the manipulated object on the gesture performed, and if the sequence of the gestures participants proposed was different from the established CAD solid modelling practices were also observed.Vocabulary was evaluated by non-designer participants, and the outcomes have shown that the majority of gestures were appropriate and easy to perform. Evaluation was performed theoretically and in the VR environment. Participants selected their preferred gestures for each activity, and a variant of the vocabulary for conceptual design was created as an outcome, that aims to ensure that extensive training is not required, extending the ability to design beyond trained designers only

Enhancing competitive advantage for European maritime sector

This poster presentation explores the topic of enhancing competitive advantage for the European maritime sector

Smart Products Through-Life : Research Roadmap

Supported by the EPSRC institutional sponsorship, three workshops were held in order to create a roadmap for future research in the field of smart products through-life. During the workshops a variety of different activities were undertaken by participants from 13 UK universities with expertise in various fields to explore the requirements and challenges relating to smart products-through life. These disciplines included: artificial intelligence, control engineering, knowledge management, manufacturing engineering, material sciences, smart product design, and the supply chain. The outputs are published in this report and are focused on Industry 4.0/Digital manufacturing and Smart Product

A systematic review of protocol studies on conceptual design cognition: design as search and exploration

This paper reports findings from the first systematic review of protocol studies focusing specifically on conceptual design cognition, aiming to answer the following research question: What is our current understanding of the cognitive processes involved in conceptual design tasks carried out by individual designers? We reviewed 47 studies on architectural design, engineering design and product design engineering. This paper reports 24 cognitive processes investigated in a subset of 33 studies aligning with two viewpoints on the nature of designing: (V1) design as search (10 processes, 41.7%); and (V2) design as exploration (14 processes, 58.3%). Studies on search focused on solution search and problem structuring, involving: long-term memory retrieval; working memory; operators and reasoning processes. Studies on exploration investigated: co-evolutionary design; visual reasoning; cognitive actions; and unexpected discovery and situated requirements invention. Overall, considerable conceptual and terminological differences were observed among the studies. Nonetheless, a common focus on memory, semantic, associative, visual perceptual and mental imagery processes was observed to an extent. We suggest three challenges for future research to advance the field: (i) developing general models/theories; (ii) testing protocol study findings using objective methods conducive to larger samples and (iii) developing a shared ontology of cognitive processes in design

Fostering divergence during conceptual design with industrial-based students

Teaching the same design module to two different cohorts, traditional design students and industry-based students, the outcomes of the conceptual design stage has shown differences in divergence achieved, looking at both number and quality of concepts. The activities of both cohorts across two years are explored, combining on campus studio based teaching and online teaching, through comparison of teaching approaches for both cohorts and their effect on the design outcomes. Findings show that the traditional design students create significantly larger number of concepts, discussed in more detail and engage more fully in the divergence-convergence design process. Then the recommendations are provided for approaches and techniques that could be implemented to the industry-based student teaching to encourage divergence during idea generation. These include increased levels of studio work focused design work separated from industry needs, more structure and mandatory use of all instructed design techniques by inclusion in the assessment, increased focus on intermediate tasks and contextualisation of design terms to the fields they are familiar with

Control of a drone with body gestures

Drones are becoming more popular within military applications and civil aviation by hobbyists and business. Achieving a natural Human-Drone Interaction (HDI) would enable unskilled drone pilots to take part in the flying of these devices and more generally easy the use of drones. The research within this paper focuses on the design and development of a Natural User Interface (NUI) allowing a user to pilot a drone with body gestures. A Microsoft Kinect was used to capture the user's body information which was processed by a motion recognition algorithm and converted into commands for the drone. The implementation of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) gives feedback to the user. Visual feedback from the drone's onboard camera is provided on a screen and an interactive menu controlled by body gestures and allowing the choice of functionalities such as photo and video capture or take-off and landing has been implemented. This research resulted in an efficient and functional system, more instinctive, natural, immersive and fun than piloting using a physical controller, including innovative aspects such as the implementation of additional functionalities to the drone's piloting and control of the flight speed

Fostering divergence during conceptual design with industrial-based students

Teaching the same design module to two different cohorts, traditional design students and industry-based students, the outcomes of the conceptual design stage has shown differences in divergence achieved, looking at both number and quality of concepts. The activities of both cohorts across two years are explored, combining on campus studio based teaching and online teaching, through comparison of teaching approaches for both cohorts and their effect on the design outcomes. Findings show that the traditional design students create significantly larger number of concepts, discussed in more detail and engage more fully in the divergence-convergence design process. Then the recommendations are provided for approaches and techniques that could be implemented to the industry-based student teaching to encourage divergence during idea generation. These include increased levels of studio work focused design work separated from industry needs, more structure and mandatory use of all instructed design techniques by inclusion in the assessment, increased focus on intermediate tasks and contextualisation of design terms to the fields they are familiar with

Systematic literature review of hand gestures used in human computer interaction interfaces

Gestures, widely accepted as a humans' natural mode of interaction with their surroundings, have been considered for use in human-computer based interfaces since the early 1980s. They have been explored and implemented, with a range of success and maturity levels, in a variety of fields, facilitated by a multitude of technologies. Underpinning gesture theory however focuses on gestures performed simultaneously with speech, and majority of gesture based interfaces are supported by other modes of interaction. This article reports the results of a systematic review undertaken to identify characteristics of touchless/in-air hand gestures used in interaction interfaces. 148 articles were reviewed reporting on gesture-based interaction interfaces, identified through searching engineering and science databases (Engineering Village, Pro Quest, Science Direct, Scopus and Web of Science). The goal of the review was to map the field of gesture-based interfaces, investigate the patterns in gesture use, and identify common combinations of gestures for different combinations of applications and technologies. From the review, the community seems disparate with little evidence of building upon prior work and a fundamental framework of gesture-based interaction is not evident. However, the findings can help inform future developments and provide valuable information about the benefits and drawbacks of different approaches. It was further found that the nature and appropriateness of gestures used was not a primary factor in gesture elicitation when designing gesture based systems, and that ease of technology implementation often took precedence

ImagineD : a vision for cognitive driven creative design

CAD systems are well suited to later design phases, but do not effec-tively support the early ambiguous, iterative, and creative stages of de-sign. CAD is continually evolving, but only incrementally and by adapting to established design processes. We present a radically new vision for creative design – ImagineD – based on advances in HCI technology. In this vision, the designer is symbiotically connected to supporting computer systems via brain-computer and gesture recogni-tion interfaces, and the design process is directly driven by the design-er’s cognition (via neural signals) and natural behaviour (via intuitive gestures). Realising this vision requires advances in scientific models of cognition, neural activity, and gesture interaction in creative design. The paper presents the work and visions of the University of Strath-clyde, covering earlier CAD work before presenting ongoing empirical and theoretical research in the above areas by the ImagineD team. We conclude with key challenges

Effects of activity time limitation on gesture elicitation for form creation

Cognitive processing employed during design includes both time critical and time-consuming types of thinking. The ability to match the pace of design generation or modification with the designers thinking processes can be particularly important with gesture-based interfaces for form creation, especially where representation modes of input and response may influence the choice of activities performed. Particularly in gesture elicitation studies, time-consuming design activities can shift the focus on forming the analogies between problem at hand and prior knowledge and experiences, rather than intuitive gesture suggestions that would be the best fit for the given representation mode. However, design methodologies do not prescribe or discuss time limitations and their use in this context. In this paper, time limitation is explored during a gesture elicitation study for three-dimensional object creation, modification and manipulation, by comparing two study parts, one where time limitation was imposed and one where time was unlimited. Resulting gesture durations in both parts were comparable and elicited gestures were similar in nature and employing same elements of hand motion, supporting the hypothesis that time limitation can be a useful methodological approach when gestures are used for interaction with 3D objects and representation and interaction modalities are matched