Design Thinking is predominantly visual: a variety of visualisations – from sketches to analytic diagrams – can support designers’ work. Each visual format has affordances that constrain and enable specific cognitive and collaborative actions: how can we describe, select and design visualisations for supporting specific phases of the design process? By integrating literature from related domains we developed a “Collaborative Dimensions of Visualisations framework”, which allows to distinguish seven traits of visualisations: Structural Restrictiveness, Content Modifiability, Directed Focus, Perceived Finishedness, Outcome Clarity, Visual Appeal and Collaboration Support. Each dimension is described and an illustrative example is provided. The framework is a pragmatic and theoretically grounded discussion tool aimed at helping designers make more informed decisions regarding the visualisations they work with.

设计思维主要是视觉化的：从草图到分析图的各种视觉化可以支持设计师的工作。每种视觉格式都有能力限制和实现特定的认知和协作行为：我们如何描述，选择和设计可视化以支持设计过程的特定阶段？通过整合相关领域的文献，我们开发了“可视化的协作维度框架”，该框架可以区分可视化的七个特征：结构限制，内容可修改性，定向焦点，感知的完成度，结果清晰，视觉吸引力和协作支持。描述了每个尺寸并提供了说明性示例。