Implementing innovative gaze analytic methods in design for manufacturing : a study on eye movements in exploiting design guidelines

Abstract Design guidelines aim to raise awareness of possibilities and limitations in manufacturing. The guidelines intend to support engineers and students to exploit the potential of manufacturing processes and to overcome the challenges of design for manufacturing. However although there are studies which show the benefit of guidelines, it remains unclear how this benefit is achieved or why it is missing. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the visual behavior of engineers and students while working with a design guideline. Gaze stationary and transition entropy are eye tracking metrics that quantitatively describe visual behavior. These metrics have been implemented in fields such as medicine and arts, but not yet in engineering. We conducted a study with 16 engineers and 20 students, who work with a design guideline and then solved an engineering design task. Their performance was classified by the manufacturability and the manufacturing effort of the design outcome, and their scanning patterns were analyzed using innovative eye tracking metrics. The results show that high performing engineers have a significant lower stationary entropy, while high performing students tend to have both high stationary and high transition entropies. While we were not able to show clear group differences, to predict the performance only through visual scanning behavior, gaze entropy remains a feasible metric for interest and curiosity. Furthermore, we adopt a Target Based Analysis for design methods to further investigate in the benefit of design guidelines.