Hasso-Plattner-Institut
 

D-Tools 2.0 - Enabling efficient collaboration in digital design spaces across time and distance

PI: Professor Christoph Meinel

Abstract

In the first year the D-Tools 2.0 project focused on supporting real-time Design Thinking for teams distributed over different locations. We developed a prototype which clearly shows the potential of remote Design Thinking by digital means. Based on observations and the feedback we got we will work on improving the prototype. Moreover we discovered that the digital support of Design Thinking activities is not only useful for synchronous and distributed work settings but also valuable for asynchronous working both co-located and distributed. Concerning synchronous setups we will further investigate how to support the synthesis phase with digital tools as this phase is crucial for all design processes.
Within the scope of the upcoming project year we want to answer these research questions for the D-Tools 2.0 project:

  1. What is the value of navigating through a projects history and linked information artifacts, and how can we make most use of it?
  2. To what extent can the daily handover process of distributed Design Thinking teams who are working asynchronously be improved by identifying project-critical periods of time during their project work? How can digital tools support the synthesis phase of a co-located team, and make it even possible in a distributed setting?

Team