Effects of Quality and Quantity of Information Processing on Design Coordination Performance

Abstract

It is acknowledged that lacking of interdisciplinary communication amongst designers can result in poor coordination performance in building design. Viewing communication as information processing activity, this paper aims to explore the relationship between interdisciplinary information processing (IP) and design coordination performance. Both amount and quality are concerned regarding information processing. 698 project based samples are collected by questionnaire survey from design institutes in mainland China. Statistical data analysis shows that the relationship between information processing amount and design coordination performance follows a nonlinear exponential expression: performance = 3.691 (1-0.235IP amount) rather than reverted U curve. It implies that design period is too short to allow information overload. It indicates that the main problem in interdisciplinary communication in design institute in China is insufficient information. In additional, it is found the correlation between IP quality and coordination process performance is much stronger than that between IP amount and coordination process performance. For practitioners, it reminds design mangers to pay more attention to information processing quality rather than amount.