This paper reports the latest research outcomes from R & D in the Educational Design Studio ( EDS ), a facility developed iteratively over four years to support and understand collaborative, real-‐time, co-‐present design work. The EDS serves to ( i ) enhance their scientific understanding of design processes and design cognition and ( ii ) provide insights into how designers ’ work can be improved through appropriate technological support. In the study presented here, the authors introduced a complex, multi-‐ user, digital design tool into the existing ecology of tools and resources available in the EDS. The work reported in this paper contributes to a more specialised line of R & D within educational technology, aimed at creating and testing better tools and methods for the design and production of learning resources. The sub-‐field of design to which the authors are contributing is variously described in the literature as instructional design, educational design, learning design, design for learning or teaching-‐as-‐design ( Conole, 2013 ; Dalziel, 2015 ; Laurillard, 2012 ; McAndrew, Goodyear, & Dalziel, 2006 ). More specifically, the authors are contributing to R & D which, over the years, has included work on authoring languages and authoring systems ( Barker, 1987 ), performance support for instructional design ( Tennyson & Barron, 2012 ), the language of instruction ( Eckel, 1993 ), intelligent instructional design aids ( Pirolli & Russell, 1990 ), courseware engineering ( Goodyear, 1995 ), educational modelling languages ( Koper & Tattersall, 2005 ), design patterns ( Dimitriadis,
