Digital Modeling for Everyone: Exploring How Novices Approach Voice-Based 3D Modeling
This addresses the problem of complex design tools for novices in digital fabrication, but it is incremental as it focuses on user mental models rather than a breakthrough solution.
The study explored how novices approach voice-based 3D modeling to lower the barrier for designing and customizing personalized 3D models, finding that voice assistants need to handle vague commands and provide straightforward strategies for object manipulation.
Manufacturing tools like 3D printers have become accessible to the wider society, making the promise of digital fabrication for everyone seemingly reachable. While the actual manufacturing process is largely automated today, users still require knowledge of complex design applications to produce ready-designed objects and adapt them to their needs or design new objects from scratch. To lower the barrier to the design and customization of personalized 3D models, we explored novice mental models in voice-based 3D modeling by conducting a high-fidelity Wizard of Oz study with 22 participants. We performed a thematic analysis of the collected data to understand how the mental model of novices translates into voice-based 3D modeling. We conclude with design implications for voice assistants. For example, they have to: deal with vague, incomplete and wrong commands; provide a set of straightforward commands to shape simple and composite objects; and offer different strategies to select 3D objects.