Collaborative sketching (C-Sketch) - An idea generation technique for engineering design

This paper presents the development and evaluation of a technique (C-Sketch) for concept generation in a collaborative engineering design setting. The paper reviews both the intrinsic merit of C-Sketch, as well as relative merit compared to other techniques in the same class. This analysis is based on results from experiments conducted over five years. Both the process and outcome were evaluated, with greater emphasis on the latter. This study found that C-Sketch not only has intrinsic merit, but also measures higher in all outcomes when compared to Method 6-3-5. Also, C-Sketch was at least as good as the Gallery Method in the quality of ideas produced and better in variety and novelty of ideas. This paper is a consolidation of all empirical studies related to C-Sketch.