Home
Primarily, Designing with Vision is interested in exploring the possibilities of using eye-tracking technology as an interface for systems intended to support the creation, exploration and development of design shape alternatives in conceptual design.
When exploring design concepts via sketching, designers take advantage of the ambiguity apparent in shapes to reinterpret developing designs and inform design decisions. However, commercially available design systems offer poor support for the dynamic reinterpretation of shape that is necessary in this process. Designing with Vision seeks to use emerging eye-tracking technology as an interface for a system intended to support the design exploration process.
How the Designing with Vision system is intended to work can be understood by considering a simplified design exploration process, as illustrated above. Here, a designer is using design software to explore kettle design concepts.
In frame 1: |
the designer has fixated on the triangular shape of a kettle’s spout and decides that this should be the theme for a design concept. |
In frame 2: |
the designer continues to explore this theme by adding a second triangle for the kettle’s base. |
In frame 3: |
the designer is considering the handle of the kettle and perceives the third triangle that has emerged as a result of drawing the first two. He can see that this triangle could be rotated to form the handle of the kettle. |
In the majority of commercially available design systems the flow of the exploration processes would be interrupted here since manipulation of this perceived triangle would not be immediately possible. This is because it is not defined in the geometric forms the designer has input into the system.
The Designing with Vision system is intended to ensure the exploration process can continue uninterrupted. The system will track the eye-movements of the designer in order to determine which features of a designed shape are of interest at a particular moment in time. The system will then restructure the shape to allow these perceived features to be manipulated.
In frame 4: |
the designer has rotated the perceived triangle to complete a concept for a kettle design. |
The Designing with Vision project seeks to
-
develop an understanding of how eye-tracking technology can be used to recognise different interpretations of shapes
-
develop a computational design system that builds on this understanding in order to support fluid design reinterpretation and exploration
 |
 |