A comparison of how novice and experienced design engineers benefit from design guidelines

Though design guidelines' benefit has been shown in the conceptual stage, little is known how novice and experienced design engineers benefit in the embodiment design phase. To address this, a mobile eye tracking study has been developed and carried out with seventeen practitioners from and in industry. Results show differences in how design guidelines impact experts' and novices' performance, indicate beneficial ways of using them, point out the participants areas of major interest and show the way of representation that attracts the most attention. The study concludes that, especially for novice design engineers, design guidelines with a redefined and clear structure are valuable and needed as input to the embodiment design phase. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.