Abstract
Engineers use various physical tools—including computers, smart boards, notes, and prototypes—to support their design work. To reveal the characteristics of innovation-supporting environments, we examined the pattern of tool use in 43 interdisciplinary engineering design teams enrolled in a full-semester Product Realization course. Teams worked all semester on a single project, with each team being assigned a different industry-sponsored project. Group meetings were video-recorded. Team success was measured in terms of meeting client requirements, and groups were divided into high, medium, and low success. Successful teams were found to use smart board and prototypes consistently more often, whereas unsuccessful teams (i.e., low success group) used computer, laptop, and notes more often. Particularly, late adoption of prototyping was a key characteristic of unsuccessful teams. Further, smart board and prototype appeared to promote success at the level of subsystem as well as at the global level, by supporting elaborated ideation.
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