What sets proficient and expert users apart? Results of a Computer-Aided Design experiment

As computer-aided design (CAD) tools have become an essential aspect of modern mechanical engineering design, the demand for CAD experts has increased significantly. The development from novice, to proficient, to expert user is of particular interest to the industrial and academic design communities. Yet little is known about the development or characteristics of expert CAD skill; much of the past work that reports user action data is based on student or novice data. We compared the CAD modelling process across nine proficient and ten expert designers as they were tested to complete the same design task. Under identical conditions – the same time constraints in the same CAD platform and with the same task -- the expert users were able to complete a larger proportion of the task with higher dimensional accuracy. While the experts were able to dissect and retrieve geometries from manufacturing drawings more efficiently than proficient users, they were also able to plan a modelling strategy that required less effort and revisions. With our experimental findings, we identify the demand for procedural knowledge-building for young engineers, with the ultimate goal of more effectively developing experts in engineering design with CAD.