| description abstract | Synchronous collaborative (“multiuserâ€) computeraided design (CAD) is a current topic of academic and industry interest due to its potential to reduce design lead times and improve design quality through enhanced collaboration. Minecraft, a popular multiplayer online game in which players can use blocks to design structures, is of academic interest as a natural experiment in a collaborative 3D design of very complex structures. Virtual teams of up to 40 simultaneous designers have created cityscale models with total design times in the thousands of hours. Using observation and a survey of Minecraft users, we offer insights into how virtual design teams might effectively build, communicate, and manage projects in a multiuser CAD design environment. The results suggest that multiuser CAD will be useful and practical in an engineering setting with several simultaneous contributors. We also discuss the effects of multiuser CAD on team organization, planning, design concurrency, communication, and mentoring. | |
