Original Article Proceedings of Virtual Concept 2006 Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, November 26 th – December 1 st , 2006 Paper Number - 1- Copyright of Virtual Concept Framework for testing and validating Interactive Augmented Prototyping as a Design Means in I ndustrial Practice Jouke Verlinden, Imre Horváth Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology Landbergstraat 15, Delft, the Netherlands Telephone : +31-152789321, Telefax: +31-152781839 E-mail : { j.c.verlinden,i.horvath}@tudelft.nl Abstract: Although much has been hypothesized on the radical nature and usefulness of computational – either virtual or augmented -prototyping support, little is known on the actual impact and adoption of such techniques. This paper reports on a forerunning empirical study on bottlenecks in concept uttering and how these can be solved by employing Virtual or Augmented Reality techniques. We chose the method of multiple case studies to produce a deep and accurate account of all prototyping and modeling activities. A range of industrial design engineering companies are followed while performing design projects, the approach and early results will be presented in this paper. The framework provides a basis by investigating the particular, and employs a cross-case analysis to generalize the body of findings towards a corpus of bottlenecks. As such, it is fit for evaluating other advanced prototyping tools as well. Key words: augmented reality, augmented prototyping, tool validation, case study, usability, industrial design. 1- I ntroduction At present, new types computational prototyping support are emerging. New approaches towards modeling, simulation and user interaction sound promising. At a number of research institutes, Augmented Reality technologies are being applied to prototyping. The resulting blend of physical and virtual prototyping, labeled Augmented Prototyping is applealing. However, in literature there is a lack of knowledge on how such advanced prototyping technologies are assessed in practice. Most studies evaluate systems with small groups of people, solely relying on students, and cannot reflect on the overall impact such means has on the design process. The usefulnes of such techniques in a design or engineering setting is of a different order than testing internal validity of a tool. After developing and evaluating a number of such interactive augmented prototyping systems with students, we concluded that the technology is not the most difficult aspect. Instead, our research questions are focused towards the operationalisation of "Design Means": 1. How can IAP advantageously influence the design process? 2. To which design phase offers IAP most value? 3. Given a phase of design, how do the benefits depend on the technologies (the type of IAP)? 4. How does this value varies per product domain? 5. To what degree influences IAP the overall design process? The contribution of this article is to present a framework for investigating usability of such prototyping tools in industrial design practice. It is primarily meant for fellow researchers who are faced with similar questions regarding usability and usefulness of advanced prototyping methods; the framework applies concepts from design research and empirical research to the virtual prototyping community. The article is structured as follows: some backgrounds concerning Interactive Augmented Prototyping and tool validation are given in Section 2, Section 3 presents the research framework, including a research outline and particulars concerning the case studies. Section 4 discusses intermediate results and challenges of execting the framework. Final conclusions are made in Section 5. 2- Backgrounds 2.1 - Advanced Prototyping –opportunities Tangible Prototypes and scale models play an important role in the design of physical artifacts, e.g. in the field of Industrial Design, in which ergonomic, aesthetic, mechanic, and manufacturing aspects all need consideration. The project’s background is that new techniques are emerging to visualize and interact with physical shapes and related artifact knowledge. The combination of physical and virtual artifact models offers new opportunities, yet it is unknown