Between Worlds: Exploring the Links Between the Tangible and Intangible Costs of Prototypes

2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Nelson ◽  
Jessica Menold
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Perceived Value ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
In Situ Study ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Intangible Costs ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Effective Design

Abstract Prototyping is an important part of the design process, but researchers currently have a limited understanding of how the resources invested in a prototype or designer teams’ intent for a prototype influence decision-making and perceptions of a prototype’s value. Prior work has shown that significant investment of time or money in design tasks can lead to design fixation, but little work has explored how these factors might impact design teams’ perceived value of prototypes with respect to the design process. Likewise, it is unclear how resource allocation and prototype intention effects the evolution of design team knowledge and subsequent design actions. To explore these relationships, an in situ study of prototyping tendencies was performed across two mechanical engineering design courses. Results suggest that effective design teams leveraged prototypes to uncover new design knowledge and limit uncertainty early in the design process. Importantly, this study did not find any significant relationships between the cost of a prototype in terms of money and time, and the perceived value of that prototype. Nor were any significant relationships found between costs and final design outcomes. Findings suggest that the true cost and value of a prototype with respect to design outcomes are challenging to explicitly quantify.

The Value of Prototyping: An Investigation of the Relationship Between the Costs of Prototyping, Perceived Value, and Design Outcome

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Nelson ◽  
Jessica Menold
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Perceived Value ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Final Design ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Prototyping is an important part of the design process and has repeatedly been identified in prior work as an important tool for designers to test assumptions, communicate ideas, and develop design knowledge. Researchers, however, currently have a limited understanding of how the resources invested in a prototype influence designers’ decision-making and their perceptions of a prototype’s value. Prior work has shown that significant investment of time or money in a prototype can lead to undesirable effects such as design fixation, but the full impact of these factors on designers’ perceived value of the prototypes remains unclear. Likewise, it is unclear how prototype usage impacts the evolution of designer knowledge. To explore these relationships, a study was performed in a 16 week-long design project involving 32 teams of mechanical engineering students. Results suggest that effective prototyping uncovered new design knowledge and limited uncertainty early in the design process, allowing teams to spend more time testing and iterating later in the design process. High-performing teams also reported final prototypes as less valuable for gathering new knowledge than their peers. Importantly, the study did not find any significant relationships between the cost of a prototype in terms of money and time, and the perceived value of that prototype. Nor were any significant relationships found between costs and final design outcomes. This work underscores the need for better methods to evaluate the value of prototyping efforts.

Bringing Ergonomics to the Design of a Behavioural Care Unit

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (8) ◽  
pp. 8-11
Author(s):  
Jacqueline B. Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Iterative Process ◽  
User Needs ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Early Design ◽  
Design Changes ◽  
Final Design ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cost

The application of ergonomics is important when considering the built environment. In order to create an environment where form follows function, a detailed understanding of the tasks performed by the individuals who will live and work in the facility is required. Early involvement in the project is key to maximizing the benefit of ergonomics. At Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, this early intervention was embraced during the design process of a behavioural care unit for aggressive patients. The ergonomist was involved in three phases of design; user needs analysis, block schematics and detailed design. The user needs and characteristics were established using a combination of focus groups, interviews, direct observation, task analysis and critique of current working environments. The challenge was to present the information to the design team in a useful manner. The format chosen was a modification of Userfit (Poulson 1996) that outlined the various characteristics of the patient group and the design consequences with “what does this mean for me” statements. During the block schematics phase an iterative design process was used to ensure that the ergonomic principles and the user needs were incorporated into the design. Ergonomic input was used in determining the room sizes and layout and to ensure work processes were considered. Simple mock-ups and anthropometric data assisted in illustrating the need for design changes. Examples that highlight the areas of greatest impact of ergonomic intervention include the patient bathrooms, showers and tub room. Significant changes were made to the design to improve the safety of the work and living space of the end users. One of the greatest challenges was having an appreciation for the individual goals of the team members. Ensuring there was adequate space for equipment and staff often resulted in recommendations for increased space. This in turn would increase the cost of the project. The architect and, later in the project, the engineer had goals of bringing the project in on budget. The final design was very much a team effort and truly die result of an iterative process. The sum of the individual contributions could not match the combined efforts. It was only through the ergonomic contributions in this early design phase that the needs of the staff, patients and families could be so well represented. The success of the iterative process provides the foundation for bringing ergonomics considerations into the early design stages of future projects.

scholarly journals Non-linear Impact of the Short Circuit Impedance Selection on the Cost Optimized Power Transformer Design

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-228
Author(s):  
Tamás Orosz ◽  
Zoltán Ádám Tamus
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Power Transformer ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Design Rule ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Electrical Machine ◽  
Preliminary Design ◽  
Large Power ◽  
Final Design ◽  
The Cost

Since the electrical machine design is a complex task it can be divided into sub-problems, e.g. preliminary and final design processes and checking of the final design. This paper deals with the preliminary design process, which provides the key-design parameters of the electrical machine. Traditionally, these electrical machine models in preliminary design phase neglect or use oversimplified insulation system models and the tap changing selection is not involved during the calculation of key-design parameters. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of the insulation distance minimization and tap-changing on the key design parameters of a cost-optimized large power transformer. For this purpose, the paper shows some examples, where the cost optimal design — in contrast to the classical insulation design rule — contains larger insulation distances than the possible minimum values. The effect of tap-changing methods are also investigated. These cost optimization made by a verified, metaheuristic method-based transformer optimization algorithm. The results show involving the insulation design and tap-changing selection into the preliminary design process can provide more economical designs.

scholarly journals Modality shift in design process : understanding the rationale behind modality shift and its effect on architectural design

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
A. K. M. Zahidul Islam
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Benefit Design ◽  
Process Understanding ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Modality Shift ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Design Ideas ◽  
Effective Design

Architectural design is a deliberate act of creativity without any definite starting point. Critical analysis of any design process reveals its basic stages. Designers use a number of design and drafting tools as well as their media (modality) to perform these processes. In search of an effective solution, designers often tend to switch between modalities. The purpose of this study is to understand how design students rationalize their modality selection and factors causing modality shifts as well as the impact of these shifts on the design outcome. This study examined different externalization forms of design ideas; identified any deviation from initial design ideas that occurred due to modality shift; analyzed final design outcomes by comparing initial ideas and its follow-through on the basis of their visualization and representation; and finally, looked into correlations between the modality shift and the design outcome. Observation and analysis revealed that students tend to shift between modalities not necessarily for facilitating problem solving only. Individual styles, instructions, requirements, context, culture, competency, ambiguity and cognitive aspects also play a significant role. It was also evident that the amplitude of shift has a positive correlation with designers' experience and accordingly impact on the final design outcome. The result of this study would help to identify reasons and effects of modality shift in design process and thus benefit design pedagogy and practice. By developing effective design methods and processes through meaningful incorporation of traditional and technologically advanced tools, students of the digital age would benefit and enhance their design perception and decision-making.

Knight and Stiny: a valuable review …

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
Alan Bridges
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Architectural Education ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Design Development ◽  
Shape Computation ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Principles Of Design ◽  
Effective Design

Knight and Stiny's paper ‘Classical and non-classical computation’ (arq 5/4, pp 355–372) is a most valuable review of recent work in shape computation but also raises a number of concepts of value in architectural education. One of the problems faced by a ‘learner designer’ is the development of an effective ‘design process’. The ways in which a designer represents form in order to deal with it during design are not necessarily apparent in the final design, or in the resulting building: it is in design development that these representations and operations become explicit and the processes of composition become transparent. Since architectural computing makes explicit the structuring and ordering logic inherent in formal models and makes transparent the operations upon objects which result in designs, the computer provides a unique environment in which to explore the principles of design.

scholarly journals Seawater Absorption and Adhesion Properties of Hydrophobic and Superhydrophobic Thermoset Epoxy Nanocomposite Coatings

Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 272
Author(s):  
Ayman M. Atta ◽  
Mohamed H. El-Newehy ◽  
Meera Moydeen Abdulhameed ◽  
Mohamed H. Wahby ◽  
Ahmed I. Hashem
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Stability ◽  
Oleic Acid ◽  
Salt Spray ◽  
Adhesion Properties ◽  
In Situ Modification ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Seawater Environment ◽  
Thermoset Epoxy ◽  
The Cost

The enhancement of both thermal and mechanical properties of epoxy materials using nanomaterials becomes a target in coating of the steel to protect it from aggressive environmental conditions for a long time, with reducing the cost. In this respect, the adhesion properties of the epoxy with the steel surfaces, and its proper superhyrophobicity to repel the seawater humidity, can be optimized via addition of green nanoparticles (NPs). In-situ modification of silver (Ag) and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) NPs with oleic acid (OA) was carried out during the formation of Ag−OA and CaCO3−OA, respectively. The epoxide oleic acid (EOA) was also used as capping for Ca−O3 NPs by in-situ method and epoxidation of Ag−OA NPs, too. The morphology, thermal stability, and the diameters of NPs, as well as their dispersion in organic solvent, were investigated. The effects of the prepared NPs on the exothermic curing of the epoxy resins in the presence of polyamines, flexibility or rigidity of epoxy coatings, wettability, and coatings durability in aggressive seawater environment were studied. The obtained results confirmed that the proper superhyrophobicity, coating adhesion, and thermal stability of the epoxy were improved after exposure to salt spray fog for 2000 h at 36 °C.

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