A review of digital industrial and product design methods in UK Higher Education

As the use of digital tools by industrial/product designers continues to increase, it is timely to explore the potential for a completely digital curriculum for undergraduate education. A survey study was carried out with 96 graduating students to collect data on the use of conventional and digital design modelling tools. Opinion was also sought from practitioners on the potential of employing entirely digital techniques during professional practice. Results indicated that respondents tended to use a combination of conventional and digital design tools. Students were not familiar with the capabilities of some digital design tools that were commercially available and they were not fully exploiting digital sketching. The paper concludes that opportunities exist for the development of learning and teaching in this area of the industrial/product design curriculum and that further research is required to better understand some of the key issues.