Impact of Visualization Tools on Design Decision Making

摘要

This report investigates the use of design decision support software by engineering design students, who completed two unfamiliar design tasks using different visualization schemes in a design decision support tool. A mixed methods analysis is used to compare the ability to optimize on multiple dimensions using discrete and continuous design decision support visualization schemes. The analysis considered the qualitative data that was self-reported by the participants in conjunction with the qualitative performance data collected by the researchers to determine the ability of the tool to support design decision making. Results suggest that contrary to self-reported familiarity with both types of visualization schemes, participants were much more likely to optimize on multiple different criteria when using discrete visualization tools than when continuous tools were used. These results, which are supported by several different pieces of qualitative data, provide insight on design decision support tools and help to provide recommendations for future tools.