Influence of representations on shape-based design activities

Shape-based design activities analyse specific shapes to highlight functions that products shaped that way could implement. These design activities encompass a clearly interactive approach; designers have direct, personal confrontations with shapes. It is not to say that the effectiveness of these interactions depends on the way the shapes, along with the environments where their evaluations take place, are represented. Different representations may imply different interaction paradigms that, in turn, could be more or less suitable to highlight implicit problems to solve or foster innovative design solutions. The research described in this paper exploits an existing classification of representations to examine in depth the influence of representations on shape-based design activities. Metrics like quantity, novelty, variety, etc., are involved to analyse the results of these activities from the quantitative point of view. All of this confirms the existence of the influence and allows highlighting some direct relationships between representations and design results. These relationships, in turn, are available to select the best representations to lead design efforts towards specific targets time by time.