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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to evaluate six kitchen industry specific personal computer aided drafting software programs to determine whether they were capable of producing project documents in conformance to industry standards of graphic presentation. This would ensure that designers using these programs would complete all phases of design and produce project documents in conformance with graphics and presentation standards of the industry.
Performance indicators (benchmarks) were derived from the National Kitchen and Bath Association's "Kitchen Design... Graphics and Presentation Standards" and incorporated into an instrument which was used to evaluate the software. The instrument consisted of design features inclusive of the full scope of visual communication of design solutions in graphic format.
All software was installed on baseline hardware according to installation routines outlined in documentation accompanying the software. The instrument was administered independently for each current copy of the software. Whereas the instrument was administered during the design phase, judgments were exercised and inferences drawn, both during the administration of the instrument on the software, as well as after the completion of the design, using the printed document generated by the software. The data were summarized into a frequency distribution. The location of each software within the distribution was used for comparison.
As a result of the study it was found no one software performed design features fully and completely in conformance to industry standards in production of project documents. Some software came closer than others to total conformance. Determining how close each individual software came to conformance was realized by examining the amount of remediation each software required in order to conform. Aggregate remediation required by individual software to conform ranged from nearly one-half to nearly two-thirds of all design features necessary to produce printed project documents.
