Sketch, CAD, or simulate the build? Exploring novice designers’ design representation use in design for additive manufacturing

The growing adoption of digital tools to support additive manufacturing (AM) calls for designers to rethink their use of design representations in the design process. For example, designers can automate concept generation through generative design, reducing reliance on conceptual sketches. Little research has explored designers' use of design representations in design for AM (DfAM). We explored this gap through an observational study with novice designers involving an open-ended DfAM task, and their use of design representations was captured using eye-tracking. Overall, participants spent a significant amount of time CAD modeling their designs compared to using other design representations such as sketches and build simulations. Moreover, participants' design representation usage did not relate to the creativity of their designs. However, participants who generate high-performing designs spent more time CAD modeling and less time sketching – a novel and important finding from our study. Therefore, the advancement of digital design tools and the growing adoption of digital manufacturing processes may result in designers conceptualizing their solutions in embodiment-based tools such as CAD and relying less on low-fidelity tools such as sketching. Our results provide an essential first step toward creating a generalized framework for designers to employ different design representations in DfAM.