Is augmented reality a new paradigm in design education when educational subsidy decreases?

Augmented Reality (AR) has become a popular tool in education at all levels, ranging from the primary to the tertiary ones. Many AR tools seem to have been developed with the intention to facilitate educators from various disciplines in adopting the AR technology in their teachings. However, the pragmatic of AR application in the product design education remains questionable. A study was undertaken in an attempt to examine the roles that AR could play in the Product Design process. In this study, AR was first introduced to the design students as one of the applicable tools. The students were observed how innovative they were to integrate AR into their open-ended and ill-structured design project. The perceived usefulness of AR was then evaluated through how much in-depth the AR technology was engaged in the solution finding process. The key aspects explored in the study includes the application potential of the AR technique at the various stages of the design process, and the pros and cons of the AR technique in facilitating the design solution finding. The possibility of AR to become an economical, practical and ubiquitous tool, particularly for encouraging constructive learning in the mechanical engineering based product design area will also be discussed in this paper.