Portable Tool for Finalizing Freehand Drawings : Activity Analysis and Design Requirements

Within a multidisciplinary team of designers, architects and mechanical engineers, and ergonomists, we participate in a research project (ICC) in design and creative interface. This paper describes a participative and iterative approach and reviews the results of field studies involved in the design of a portable tool for finalizing freehand drawings. The results are discussed in terms of Activity Theory and its contribution to this field.Peer reviewe

Enseigner la conception collaborative à distance avec des technologies innovantes : retours d’expérience du SDC et du HIS

Cet article décrit deux dispositifs de collaboration à distance innovants, utilisés notamment pour l’apprentissage de la conception collaborative à distance. Ces deux dispositifs, à savoir le Hybrid Ideation Space (HIS) et le Stu-dio Digital Collaboratif (SDC) sont basés sur le même paradigme d’esquisse numérique, bien que les objectifs sous-jacents et leur mise en œuvre soient différents. Nous décrivons dans l’article les objectifs sous-tendant leur développement, synthétisons l’approche pédagogique et décrivons un retour d’expérience sur ces deux situations complémentaires

A Virtual Desktop's First evaluation for an Augmented Design Process

Many CAD tools already allow to design and directly manipulate ideas in a digital way. However, designers still use pen and paper during the early design phase of their projects. Indeed, existing CAD tools constraint creative work. There is a need for a spontaneous human computer interaction in design computing. In order to answer to this need, we develop an integrated aided design tool based on a Virtual Desktop. The designer sits in front of a classical desk where s/he can design and manipulate drawings and generated models. This paper describes the observations made during experiment about Virtual Desktop’s use by a designer. The experiment demonstrates that the immersive aspect of our system interface modifies the relationship between the designer and his/her model and, by the way, how this relation generates a new type of augmented interaction.Peer reviewe

Les représentations externes en collaboration créative.Etude d’un cas de réunions de conception architecturale

peer reviewedLe développement d’un projet architectural est accompagné de formes diverses de représentations externes telles que le croquis, les gestes, la maquette tridimensionnelle ou la photographie. La génération et la manipulation de ces représentations permettent à la fois de résoudre des problèmes de conception architecturale et de soutenir l'exploration de solutions créatives. Cet article a pour objectif, via une exploration théorique et une approche exploratoire du terrain professionnel, de décrire différents enjeux de l’utilisation conjointe de formes différentiées de représentations externes dans les premières phases du processus de projet et particulièrement en réunions de conception.ARC COMMO

Stress and Childhood Asthma Risk: Overlapping Evidence from Animal Studies and Epidemiologic Research

<p/> <p>Rapidly expanding evidence increasingly strengthens the evidence linking psychological factors to asthma and allergy expression. Parallel studies in animals and humans demonstrating the influence of prenatal maternal stress and early caregiving experiences on the disrupted regulation of defensive biological systems [eg, sympathetic and adrenomedullary (SAM) system and the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis] provide strong proof of concept for this line of research. The consequent altered neuroimmune responses may influence the expression of immune-mediated disorders such as asthma as well as enhance an individual's susceptibility to other environmental factors that may also contribute to asthma risk.</p

Quality of collaboration in a distant collaborative architectural educational setting

peer reviewedThis paper analyses the quality of collaboration of two student teams in a longitudinal study of a collaborative distant architectural studio. Based on a simple method to assess several dimensions of this quality of collaboration, we compared the two groups at three stages of the design process. We also analysed how the quality of collaboration evolved over time and as a function of the design stage. We finally discuss the interests of the method and some insights to support a better understanding of mechanisms of collaboration

Understanding and supporting collaborative design using an horizontal tabletop display

peer reviewedBased on our research on evaluating a Virtual desk environment for architects and designers is it possible to derive requirements for supporting collaborative design activities ? We first examine questions related to internal and external interactions in architectural design, to the role of external representations and their extension as shared objects of design in collaborative horizontal tabletop. Then we describe the Virtual Desktop and the EsQUIsE software. We will synthesize the results of our former investigations on this setting, in order to derive new orientations for the design and research

Bridging gaps between ergonomics and creative design: a pedagogical experiment

peer reviewedIn this paper, we describe a large-scale pedagogical setting involving groups of students from different profiles gathered around a real-scale design project (re-shaping the waiting room of a mental health center). Ergonomics students’ main task is to analyze the needs and real activities of end-users; high school students’ task is to propose inspiring design tracks; interior architecture students’ task is to produce the design project; industrial drafting students’ task is to realize execution plans while construction students’ task is to implement the project on site. This communication more precisely focuses on the role of ergonomists in the setup, describing their intervention and the practical and pedagogical innovations put in place to help them face the various challenges encountered during the project, namely dealing with the temporal constraints of the intervention, documenting and observing a sensitive situation and involving end-users to make them heart of the design process. The paper concludes with feedback gathered from the different stakeholders

Sharing representations in distant synchronous collaborative design : framework, technological proposal and scientific issues.

This chapter addresses the issue of sharing in collaborative design by the use of an original system developed in the LUCID-ULg Lab. The Distributed Collaborative Design Studio (DCDS) is a remote workspace environment aiming to emulate, at a distance, the conditions of face-to-face meetings. It is designed to allow designers to interact collaboratively at distance on a shared workspace, thanks to «natural» pen-based interaction. This documents sharing and real-time collaborative annotations are supposed to enhance awareness and grounding dur- ing collaboration in design domains. In this chapter, we explicit the theoretical rationale for sharing in collaborative design, briefly describe the DCDS, summarize the observations we made relative to resources sharing (plans, pictures, documents and so on), and conclude on the theoretical and methodological issues to be addressed to deepen our knowledge about sharing external representations in design, to enhance the system and to adapt it to other contexts.ARC COMMO

User studies of a sketch-based collaborative distant design solution in industrial context

peer reviewe