Towards an improved distributed whiteboard for E-collaborative design

International audienceRecent trend towards globalization, integration of the supply chain and virtual enterprises creation lead people to change from "classic" collaborative work to "Distributed Design" where they implement new ways to communicate, across distance using Internet based technology. But in this "E-Design" paradigm, a lot of research is yet to be done. This paper describes our research aimed at distributed design, more specifically on the first phases where designers usually use sketches. We present several distributed design experiments that lead us to affirm that existing tools are far from providing the same efficiency as the old fashioned sheet of paper on the table method. Building on the lack of these existing tools, we then propose our views of a better sketcher for distributed design, which features: parametrized draft tool, an access to symbols libraries, and that put an emphasis on mutual awareness, etc