Visual communication in engineering design: impact of line work in explanative sketching

As conceptual design sketches are a common tool used to communicate between team members, it is important to understand the relationship between sketch characteristics and engineers’ perceptions. This study evaluates 4 line styles common in many sketch techniques: the Single Line, Feathered Line, Heavily Feathered Line, and Variable Line. 40 mechanical engineers ranked preferences of complex engineering products in these line styles and provided adjectives to describe their choices. Results show that engineers preferred the Single Line, which had the common adjectives of clear and professional. The findings suggest that engineers should generally be learning and using a single, uniform and clean line style.