Rapid and flexible graphical communication for conceptual design

Professionals who work in conceptual design spaces have very different communication needs than those who work in design spaces for detail design. In the conceptual design stage, people, ideas and technologies are typically mobile, fluid and distributed - even when relatively co-located While our approach is exploratory, we hope that this endeavour can help organize a new family of techniques and ideas in the engineering design community. Some key concepts that we deploy are conceptual design, informal graphics, rapid graphical communication and optimal ignorance in the graphical communication process. We will illustrate what we mean by describing a few new methods such as feature-based sketching and edited/annotated photos. We will also discuss preliminary trials using new mobile technologies, such as digital ink pens since 2004, and our research plans for student design teams using Tablet PCs.