Theoretical Foundations of Design Thinking. Part III: Robert H. McKim’s Visual Thinking Theories

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-72
Author(s):  
Julia P. A. von Thienen ◽  
William J. Clancey ◽  
Christoph Meinel
Keyword(s):  
Design Thinking ◽  
Visual Thinking ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

Enhancing Visual Thinking in a Toy Design Course Using Freehand Sketching

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elkin Taborda ◽  
Senthil K. Chandrasegaran ◽  
Lorraine Kisselburgh ◽  
Tahira Reid ◽  
Karthik Ramani
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Design Tools ◽  
Visual Thinking ◽  
Engineering Knowledge ◽  
Principles Of Design ◽  
Toy Design ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Creativity And Innovation

Engineering graduates in advancing economies are not only expected to have engineering knowledge, but also use them in creative and innovative ways. The importance of visual thinking has been critical for creativity and innovation in design. However, today’s engineering students are proficient in detailed design tools but lacking in conceptual design and ideation, and engineering curricula needs to develop a more effective framework for teaching visual thinking. In this paper, we report our efforts to embed principles of design thinking and visual thinking practices, like McKim’s “seeing, imagining and drawing” cycle [1]. We use a toy design course in mechanical engineering for our pilot study as a scaffold for introducing these principles in an engaging, creative, and fun environment. We introduced free-hand sketching as a tool for visual thinking during the design and communication of concepts. We also report the impact of these changes through information gleaned from student feedback surveys and analysis of design notebooks. We use our findings to propose ways to provide the students with a set of balanced techniques that help them in visual thinking, communication, and design. An improved implementation of this experience is discussed and future work is proposed to overcome barriers to thinking and communication.

scholarly journals A Schema for Systematic Service Imagining: Context-Based Activity Modeling

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9558
Author(s):  
Yong Se Kim ◽  
Jiyun Jeong ◽  
YeonKoo Hong ◽  
Seok Jin Hong
Keyword(s):  
Human Activities ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Service Design ◽  
Visual Thinking ◽  
Structured Design ◽  
Activity Modeling ◽  
Product Service ◽  
Service Activities ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
Structured Design Methods

Design thinking as a mindset and as a process for design and business innovation receives a lot of attention. Thus, concrete and structured methods for design thinking need to be devised, and design thinking competencies should be fostered proactively. Design thinking is underpinned by visual thinking composed of interactive iterations of Seeing—Imagining—Drawing. The visual reasoning model developed to understand and support visual thinking describes the process with cognitive activities as well as knowledge and schema. The visual reasoning model could serve as a framework to devise structured methods and tools for design thinking and to foster design thinking competencies. It would be desirable if schema to serve as underlying models in imagining service activities are to be identified so that cognitive activities in seeing—imagining—drawing can be systematically structured in service design, where the objects of designing are human activities and experiences. In this paper, three structured design methods developed for service design have been described and characterized in the framework of the visual reasoning model. Particularly the context-based activity modeling has been demonstrated as schema in structured imagining of service activities for product-service systems, as it serves the underlying role in organizing information on human activities consistently and yet with different interactions with other constituents of these three imagining methods.

Theoretical Foundations of Design Thinking

2018 ◽  
pp. 13-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia P. A. von Thienen ◽  
William J. Clancey ◽  
Christoph Meinel
Keyword(s):  
Design Thinking ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

Applied Tests of Design Skills—Part III: Abstract Reasoning

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Khorshidi ◽  
Jami J. Shah ◽  
Jay Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Analogical Reasoning ◽  
Divergent Thinking ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Test Construction ◽  
Abductive Reasoning ◽  
Difficulty Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Test Problems ◽  
Visual Thinking ◽  
Abstract Reasoning

Past studies have identified the following cognitive skills relevant to conceptual design: divergent thinking, spatial reasoning, visual thinking, abstract reasoning, and problem formulation (PF). Standardized tests are being developed to assess these skills. The tests on divergent thinking and visual thinking are fully developed and validated; this paper focuses on the development of a test of abstract reasoning in the context of engineering design. Similar to the two previous papers, this paper reports on the theoretical and empirical basis for skill identification and test development. Cognitive studies of human problem solving and design thinking revealed four indicators of abstract reasoning: qualitative deductive reasoning (DR), qualitative inductive reasoning (IR), analogical reasoning (AnR), and abductive reasoning (AbR). Each of these is characterized in terms of measurable indicators. The paper presents test construction procedures, trial runs, data collection, norming studies, and test refinement. Initial versions of the test were given to approximately 250 subjects to determine the clarity of the test problems, time allocation and to gauge the difficulty level. A protocol study was also conducted to assess test content validity. The beta version was given to approximately 100 students and the data collected was used for norming studies and test validation. Analysis of test results suggested high internal consistency; factor analysis revealed four eigenvalues above 1.0, indicating assessment of four different subskills by the test (as initially proposed by four indicators). The composite Cronbach’s alpha for all of the factors together was found to be 0.579. Future research will be conducted on criterion validity.

Theoretical Foundations of Design Thinking

2017 ◽  
pp. 13-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia P. A. von Thienen ◽  
William J. Clancey ◽  
Giovanni E. Corazza ◽  
Christoph Meinel
Keyword(s):  
Design Thinking ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

Co-creating a visual thesaurus for the role of design thinking in management decision making

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angele BEAUSOLEIL ◽  
Moura QUAYLE
Keyword(s):  
Concept Maps ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Visual Thinking ◽  
Management Domain ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Management Decision Making ◽  
Visual Thesaurus

The workshop will engage participants to co-create concept maps and a visual thesaurus associated with ‘design thinking’. For design researchers, scholars and practitioners this workshop aims to expose the epistemological challenges and opportunities associated with ‘design thinking’ in management and leadership contexts. Concept mapping is a tool and technique that aims to enable visual thinking and knowledge organization skills. It offers a way to externalize understanding of complex topics (i.e. design thinking) in terms of both intra- and inter-personal relationships (i.e. within the management domain). A visual thesaurus displays semantic connections using pictures or images, not words. It aids in recognizing visually similar events or visual synonyms. Workshop participants will be guided through a series of visual thinking and design techniques to develop concept maps and a visual thesaurus for ‘design thinking’ and design-related terminologies within the management discourse. The outputs generated from the workshop will reflect a multidisciplinary understanding of the subject for knowledge translation and identify future research goals

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