WORKING MEMORY
In particular, the human mind operates in
a certain way; the ‘Baddley Hitch’ model
argues that our working memory can only
handle limited auditory information at
one time, without recourse to long-term
memory (try remembering a long telephone
number over ten digits). Alan Baddley
and Graham Hitch proposed a
model of working memory in
1974, in an attempt to present
a more accurate model of
primary memory (often referred
to as short-term memory).
Working memory splits primary
memory into multiple components,
rather than considering it to be a
single, unified construct. “Further research
has opined that the human mind can
process visual information 60,000 times
faster than auditory information. Indeed,
these truths are exploited by 3D CAD;
where 3D excels over 2D, of course, is
that we naturally see things in 3D and
it is easier for our minds to grasp.”
Lomer (inset, above), offers an example
of how this might work in practice. “There
is a group of people sitting around the
table in a design collaboration with
artefacts. If we analyse the activities in
the meeting, then we can see that there
is much happening; we have gestures,
xxxxxx
response to gestures, postures, eyes
gaze, facial expression, verbal stimulation,
Teen Collaborative
Creation at GKN.
context and artefact stimulation,
immediate turn-taking in the exchange of
ideas, the general exchange of experience
of the whole natural meeting. In a
collaborative design, there is a constant
interaction between all of these signals,
as well as all of the artefacts.
“This process is how
collaborative consensus is
built in a multi-disciplinary
team that wishes to
achieve a complex design
objective. This natural
meeting is actually a
collaborative process where
all of the people need to see
all of the other people and all of
the artefacts simultaneously. If the remote
electronic medium filters this capability in
any way, then the ideation process will be
flawed and design consensus impaired.”
Current issues with remote
collaborations are that first-generation
desktop type products disallow the natural
meeting being remotely communicated, as
we have seen this then inhibits the flow of
ideas, he says. “Further, most businesses
are not aware of the new media enabling
remote design. With ever-increasing
complexity and the remote distribution
of experts, there is a requirement to
design complex systems using knowledge
from across the country or world. At the
moment, the desktop-type technology
East West Rail
design meeting.
struggles to cope with high complexity; we
can share CAD remotely, but the ‘natural
meeting’, or the layer over and above the
sharing of a single model, is absolutley
absent. Indeed, it is the fact that the
medium that is utilised constrains the
quality of the remote design collaboration.
This is why design teams working on
complex issues tend to be co-located.
However, with new technology, these
technical constraints are disappearing,
opening a whole new modus operandi
world wide, with either knowledge or lower
cost, or a combination of both, delivering
significant potential benefits to the
organisation.”
REVOLUTION OF IDEAS
Various new products are appearing on
the market – such as Oblong’s Mezzanine,
a room-based system; nuVa’s ‘remote
drawing board’ system; and nuReva’s
room based system – all lying in the
ideation market that all allow richer remote
collaboration than the desktop norm,
the latter using ‘sticky note’ electronic
innovation at distance. The new media
delivered by these products have been
identified as the evolving ‘ideation market’
that can share collaborations across the
world, revolutionising the way we work.
“Focused in the pure emulation of a
natural meeting and remote design is
nuVa,” he asserts. “nuVa was originally
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