The effect of animation software interface on design thinking process - Protocol analysis of Alice and KidsPlay

Nowadays, CAD has became an essential tool for designers due to its easy edition and manipulation as well as the capability of communication between designers. Differences between design tool interfaces can cause gaps when visualize designer's ideas. This study is about the differences between various levels of metaphor interface language which is based on the theory of the Hutchins that high-level language interface can reduce the steps of process to visualize the idea of the designers than low-level language interface. This research is based on the assumption that high-level language interface will less interrupt the flow of the design thinking and make more various visual outcomes than the low-level language interface. We verified the hypothesis by analyzing differences of design thinking flow between user groups who used two different animation software. Hopefully, the verification of the hypothesis in this study can be able to guide the use pattern of the CAD tools.clos