Evaluating the impact of idea dissemination methods on information loss

Tucker, C. S.; Lopez, Christian E.; Zhao, Z. V.

Evaluating the impact of idea dissemination methods on information loss

Abstract

Information is transferred through a process consisting of an information source, a transmitter, a channel, a receiver, and its destination. Unfortunately, during the engineering design process, there is a risk of a design idea or solution being incorrectly transferred and interpreted due to the nonlinearity of the process, and many ways to communicate and disseminate ideas or solutions. The objective of this work is to explore the amount of relevant design information transmitted by different idea dissemination methods and how the receiver's familiarity with the idea impacts the effectiveness of the methods. First, this work explores the advantages and disadvantages of different dissemination methods in engineering design. Next, an experiment is conducted with engineering and nonengineering participants in order to quantify the information transmitted by different idea dissemination methods. This work also quantifies the effect that receivers' familiarity with a design artifact has on the amount of information transmitted by different dissemination methods. Finally, the results obtained from the experiments are compared with a previous theoretical model for validation. The results indicate that while certain methods are perceived as more informative and are able to convey more information than others (e.g., linguistic textual description versus virtual three-dimensional (3D) models), the effectiveness of the methods depends on a receiver's familiarity with the ideas being transmitted. Knowledge gained from this work can aid designers in selecting a suitable dissemination method needed to effectively communicate ideas and achieve a design solution.

Title	Evaluating the impact of idea dissemination methods on information loss
Creator	Tucker, C. S.
	Lopez, Christian E.
	Zhao, Z. V.
Publisher	Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering
Academic Department	Computer Science
Division	Natural Sciences
Organization	Lafayette College
Date Issued	2019
Date Available	2020-01-07
Type	Article
Language	English
Keyword	Control equipment
	Design
	Engineering design processes
Bibliographic Citation	Zhao, Z. V., C. E. Lopez, and C. S. Tucker (2019) "Evaluating the impact of idea dissemination methods on information loss." Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering 19 (3): 031006.
Standard Identifier	Handle 10385/37720d27g
Standard Identifier	DOI 10.1115/1.4042553
Permalink	http://hdl.handle.net/10385/37720d27g
Rights Statement	In Copyright
Rights Holders	ASME