Table 1. Participant characteristics

Location / Frequency / Percentage
California (Northern)
California (Southern)
Florida (Central)
Florida (North)
Florida (South)
Illinois (Chicago Metropolitan Area)
Illinois (Central)
Illinois (Southern)
New York (Long Island)
New York (New York City)
New York (Upstate) / 19
17
9
12
3
18
6
0
1
11
3 / 19%
17%
9%
12%
3%
18%
6%
0%
1%
11%
3%
Position / Frequency / Percentage
Junior Designer
Interior Designer
Senior Designer
Design Director
Project Manager
Principal/Owner
Other / 00
24
17
8
9
27
13 / 0%
24%
17%
8%
9%
28%
13%
Other: Associate Principal, Principal not owner, Designer/Project Manager, VP of Interior Design, Interior Design/CAD Drafter, Interiors Coordinator, Sr. Project Manager, Workplace Strategist, Associate Principal, Studio Director, Sales Associate, Sales / Design
Years of Experience / Frequency / Percentage
Less than 1
1-5
6-10
11-20
Over 20 / 0
14
21
26
38 / 0%
14%
21%
26%
38%
Size of Firm / Frequency / Percentage
Sole Proprietorship
2-5 Designers
6-20 Designers
21-50 Designers
50-100 Designers
101-250 Designers
Over 250 Designers / 6
21
19
11
11
1
30 / 6%
21%
19%
11%
11%
1%
30%
Market sectors of firm (multiple selections allowed) / Frequency / Percentage
Corporate
Education
Government (Local, State or Federal)
Healthcare, Wellness, or Senior Living
Hospitality or Restaurant
Institutional
Residential
Retail
Tenant Development
Facilities Management
Other / 82
56
42
61
43
31
25
44
47
20
7 / 85%
58%
43%
63%
44%
32%
26%
45%
48%
21%
7%
Other: Industrial, Media & Entertainment, Multi-family living, Sustainability, Aviation & Transportation, High Tech

Figure 1. Software relative to design process phases.


Figure 2. Practitioner attitudes toward the teaching of specific software packages.

Figure 3. Practitioner attitudes toward teaching technological applications.

Table 2.

Upcoming trends participant’s firms have identified for the future

Emerging themes from 51 open-ended responses (note some responses were categorized into multiple themes).

Theme / Subtheme / Example Response
Integrated Project Delivery (23) / (19) BIM/Revit / “Increasing presence of design options in our project (Revit driven) to propose multiple solutions to clients in minimal time”
(4) Communication between software or between consultants / “Integrated Project Delivery, Coordination of Software Plug-ins across multiple platforms”
Visualization
(17) / (9) High client demands
i.e. walkthroughs, photorealism / “More realistic and detail oriented renderings. Clients want EVERYTHING perfect... down to the angle of the "out the window" photo, and titles of books on shelves.”
(3) Early & Rapid Rendering / “early visioning demands from clients precede traditional design methods”
(2) Augmented reality/”Gamification” / “use of google glass, augmented reality technologies”
(2) Use of Video & Video Storytelling / “increased use of video”
(1) High Quality Diagrams / “Graphically pleasing diagrams as well as quick in-house renders are increasingly desirable”
Virtual Work
(10) / (5) Increased use of mobile devices / “Mobile technologies in use daily...sending images via phone...phone as central point of communication and collaboration.”
(3) Virtual Firms / “Virtual firms....there is no longer a need for traveling to and sitting in one location....that just wastes personal resources, uses time and offers little advantage. Employees need to have their own equipment and CAD licenses and be ready to work virtually in their own space, and have the self-discipline to do so.”
(2) Outsourcing / “The design firms our corporate employees are increasingly dong their renderings offshore. Few designers in the local office are producing renderings.”
Prototyping
(8) / (8) 3D printing, Laser cutting, Prototyping / “3-d modeling/BIM continues to be a big push but 3-d printing is beginning to show more strength and demand.”
Other
(3) / (3) More Intuitive Software / “Although we have moved beyond Autocad, beyond Archicadd, to Revit, Revit is so demanding that it's almost impossible to design in (all are difficult to "sketch" in) ... need to be able to quickly draw different ideas for evaluation and software has overtaken hand sketching and physical models.”
(1)  Library Database