A comparative analysis of multimodal communication during design sketching in co-located and distributed environments
Section snippets
Sketches as design representations that mediate shared understanding
Representations are instrumental in design activity; representation construction has even been argued to define designing (Visser, 2006). Representations can reveal much about how designers structure and process information, and can be categorized according to several differentiating principles. Two principles relevant to this study are the location of the representation, and its intended audience.
When considering the first differentiating principle, a common and useful distinction is the
Protocol study
Building on the theoretical framing introduced in the previous section, we designed and conducted a protocol study in order to systematically investigate and compare multimodal communication during design sketching in co-located and distributed environments.
Data analysis framework
We analyzed the data by using video interaction analysis techniques. We watched the footage individually and as a group, and made qualitative observations. Our initial observations helped us to identify a specific behavior related to the use of deictic gestures in constructing shared understanding, and to determine how to decompose the sketching sessions into a series of communication activities over time. In consultation with the literature, we arrived at the coding scheme described below, and
Results
Each group was able to finish the design task in each condition in approximately 30 min. As also confirmed by the exit interviews, participants did not exhibit any significant difficulty in utilizing the DSS, and their transition from the whiteboard to the system was much smoother than we anticipated. This is mainly due to the simplicity, size and resolution of the system, and the use of the same sketching tools (a whiteboard marker and eraser) in both environments.
Gesturing and sketch content creation durations
The 53% decrease in the gesturing duration in the distributed condition supports our first hypothesis. Based on our qualitative observations and participants' post-session reflections, this seems to be an outcome of the decreased visual connectivity to the remote designer in the distributed setting, which is to be expected. If one cannot confirm that one's gestures are being observed and understood by the other party, one is less motivated to gesture. In the co-located setting, we observed that
Conclusion
The findings of the study extend our knowledge of the role gesturing plays during design sketching.
First, the study provides a comparative quantitative characterization of multimodal design communication during sketching in co-located and distributed environments, and serves a descriptive purpose. It identifies speech as an incessant communication channel in both co-located and distributed design settings. It also shows that hand gestures communicate information unique to the gestural channel
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