Session: CIE-13-01 - SEIKEM: Design Informatics

Paper Number: 91086

91086 - Effects of Augmented Information System on Design Communication: A Human-Subject Study Using Aircraft Design Studio 

This paper performs a human subject study to investigate the effect of an augmented design interface on the communication behavior and performance of multidisciplinary design teams. We frame an aircraft design task as an iterative multidisciplinary design process with 12 design parameters shared across four design actors, each in charge of one discipline. A browser-based virtual design studio interface hosts the design task. We conduct baseline human subject experiments using the virtual design studio to collect observational data on design communication and design performance. We analyze the observational data to recommend augmentations that improve the performance of decentralized teams. The two augmented features are a flexible design timer to control design iterations and a history catalog that quantifies the quality of previous design states. We conduct a set of augmented human subject experiments. We study the communication behavior and performance in the augmented experiments and compare them to those in the baseline experiments. We show that the augmented features increase design iteration rate and decrease chat message rate. The augmented interface enabled the most successful teams to complete the task faster. We discuss the implications of our results in the broader context of digitalization and transformations due to information systems.

Presenting Author: Joseph Thekinen University of Calgary

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Joseph Thekinen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Calgary. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He did his B.Tech and M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, with honors such as university silver medal (for topping academics in his department), best Masters thesis award, ABS scholarship, and J.P. Ghose Memorial award. His research focuses on enhancing human-AI partnership in decentralized sociotechnical systems using algorithmic game theory, machine learning, network science, and experimental techniques.

Authors:

Joseph Thekinen University of Calgary
Paul Grogan Stevens Institute of Technology