In Search of Effective Design Problems for Design Research

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabien Durand ◽  
Michael E. Helms ◽  
Joanna Tsenn ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams ◽  
Julie S. Linsey
Keyword(s):  
Design Problem ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Evaluation Metrics ◽  
Or Education ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Early Results ◽  
Thinking Tools

Much design theory research seeks to create, evaluate, improve or optimize design methods. Whether that research focuses on design thinking, tools, methods, or education, short design problems are often provided to participants in order to evaluate the effects of the variables being tested. When designing and creating such problems, certain characteristics may influence design outcomes: experience and exposure to the design problems vary between participants, and each problem may be more or less favorable to the controlled variable. In this paper we conjecture a small set of design problem characteristics that may influence experimental outcomes, and we discuss two experiments targeted at uncovering this influence. In our first experiment we examine differences in evaluation metrics between two design problems. In a follow up experiment we correlate the hypothesized characteristics to the variances in experiment outcome. These early results assist to further compare and contrast the empirical differences in common evaluation metrics, as well as show how familiarity and extent of the subjects’ knowledge of a design problem influence these metrics. We also expose the potential for interaction between the design method and the design problem.

scholarly journals Axiomatic Design: 30 Years After

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Nordlund ◽  
Taesik Lee ◽  
Sang-Gook Kim
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Organizational Design ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Axiomatic Design ◽  
Environment Design ◽  
Good Design ◽  
Axiomatic Design Theory ◽  
Practical Experiences

In 1977, Nam P Suh proposed a different approach to design research. Suh’s approach was different in that it introduced the notions of domains and layers in a 2-D design thinking and stipulated a set of axioms that describes what is a good design. Following Suh’s 2-D reasoning structure in a zigzagging manner and applying these axioms through the design process should enable the designer to arrive at a good design. In this paper, we present our own experiences in applying Suh’s theories to software design, product design, organizational design, process design, and more in both academic and industrial settings. We also share our experience from teaching the Axiomatic Design theory to students at universities and engineers in industry, and draw conclusions on how best to teach and use this approach, and what results one can expect. The merits of the design axioms are discussed based on the practical experiences that the authors have had in their application. The process developed around the axioms to derive maximum value (solution neutral environment, design domains, what-how relationship, zig-zag process, decomposition, and design matrices) is also discussed and some updates are proposed.

scholarly journals A Methodology for Architecture Theory and Practices Research: Design Practices Evaluation Studio

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 195
Author(s):  
Fathi Bashier
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Need To Evaluate ◽  
Research Goal ◽  
Architecture Theory ◽  
The Way

This article presents the initial findings of the design research carried out during the last semester by the master of architecture students at Wollega University, Ethiopia. The research goal is the creation of new knowledge to improve the design process. The dissatisfaction with the outcomes of the conventional design approach has led to rising concern and growing awareness of the need to evaluate design outcomes and to learn from the failure. That inadequate understanding of design problems leads frequently to design failure suggests that the evaluation of design outcomes can be made by assessing the way architects develop understanding of design problems, and how they use that understanding for developing knowledge base of the design process. The assumption is that architects’ understanding of design problems can be assessed by examining the way data is used for developing the knowledge base of the design process. The students surveyed the architects’ views in order to produce knowledge, which can be used to develop methods for discovering how inadequate data contributes to miss-informed design decisions; and methods for assessing the architects’ understanding of design problems. In this article the survey findings are analyzed and documented; and, the way the insight drawn from the inquiry can be used in future research for developing design theory, is discussed.Keywords: design outcomes, failure, evaluation, questionnaire, analyze

Application of Intelligent Optimization Algorithm in Mechanical Design

2015 ◽  
Vol 713-715 ◽  
pp. 2049-2052
Author(s):  
Sha Sha Dou
Keyword(s):  
Design Theory ◽  
Optimization Design ◽  
Mechanical Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Computational Effort ◽  
Ant Algorithm ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Intelligent Optimization Algorithm ◽  
Design Requirements ◽  
Mechanical Optimization

Mechanical optimization design is a new design method in the development foundation of the modern mechanical design theory, the application of optimization design in mechanical design can make the scheme achieve some optimization results in the design requirements specified, without consuming too much computational effort. The corresponding mathematical models of ant algorithm and Cellular ant algorithm are established, according to the actual mechanical design problems, and used to solve the established mathematical model by computer, so as to obtains the optimal design scheme.

scholarly journals Efficient nonlinear Bayesian survey design using DN optimization

Geophysics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. Q1-Q8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell Coles ◽  
Andrew Curtis
Keyword(s):  
Design Theory ◽  
Survey Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Petroleum Reservoir ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Bayesian Design ◽  
Practical Advantage ◽  
Practical Possibility ◽  
Nonlinear Design ◽  
And Storage

A new method for fully nonlinear, Bayesian survey design renders the optimization of industrial-scale geoscientific surveys as a practical possibility. The method, DN optimization, designs surveys to maximally discriminate between different possible models. It is based on a generalization to nonlinear design problems of the D criterion (which is for linearized design problems). The main practical advantage of DN optimization is that it uses efficient algorithms developed originally for linearized design theory, resulting in lower computing and storage costs than for other nonlinear Bayesian design techniques. In a real example in which we optimized a seafloor microseismic sensor network to monitor a fractured petroleum reservoir, we compared DN optimization with two other networks: one proposed by an industrial contractor and one optimized using a linearized Bayesian design method. Our technique yielded a network with superior expected data quality in terms of reduced uncertainties on hypocenter locations.

The connective role of improvisation in dealing with uncertainty during invention and design processes

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Satu MIETTINEN ◽  
Melanie SARANTOU
Keyword(s):  
Performing Arts ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
Art And Design ◽  
Design Activities

This paper explores the role of improvisation in design thinking for product design processes and design research methods. Improvisation is often at the core of practice-based and participatory design, permitting flexibility. The role of improvisation in the performing arts has received considerable academic attention, however its role in design processes has been neglected, because improvisation is often viewed as the second-best solution to design problems. This paper presents a framework for improvisation by surveying existing scholarship. Additionally, field study data collected between 2011 and 2016, primarily in Namibia and Australia, will be used to illustrate how improvisation is applied by practitioners during their art and design activities. The connective function of improvisation allows designers to negotiate, take risks, unmake and remake formations. This function enables the fluidity of design, to move from one moment in a process to the next, allowing designers to negotiate ways of work during uncertainty.

Similarity of Engineering Design Problems to Enable Reuse in Design Research Experiments

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Varun Kumar ◽  
Gregory Mocko
Keyword(s):  
Latent Semantic Analysis ◽  
Design Problem ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Creativity Research ◽  
Engineering Design Problems ◽  
Five Elements ◽  
Protocol Study

The objective of this research is to evaluate the similarity of design problems used in research experiments based on their representation. Design problems form an essential component of experiments in creativity research. However, the formulation of a design problem for an experiment is still a challenging task. An opportunity for the design community is leverage existing design problems to reduce a source of difference between experiments and increase the validity of new method and tools. To answer this question, fifty-five design problems, published over the past fifteen years, were collected and analyzed using two approaches. First, the information content of the design problems was assessed based on five structural elements. A protocol study was developed with four independent evaluators, who were asked to identify the five elements in a set of design problems. A high correlation was observed for the characteristics: goal of a problem, functional requirements, non-functional requirement and reference to an existing product. A low correlation was observed for the characteristics information about end user. The results suggest that this approach could serve as a useful tool in comparing and selecting problems with a desired number of elements. In the second approach, latent semantic analysis was used to compare the design problems. Latent semantic analysis enables design problem similarity to be computed prior to solving the problem. However, this method cannot identify the nuances in problem representations, which could potentially affect solution development. The paper concludes with an appeal to research community of using similar or benchmarked design problems, and postulate other means to enable comparison or development of problems in creativity research.

Complexity Theory Revisited

2014 ◽  
pp. 157-176
Keyword(s):  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Design Problem ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Linear Process ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Design Creativity ◽  
Satisfactory Account ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The University

The fact that creativity is rationally unaccountable plagues design theory, and it tends to exclude the education done in design studios from the reputation of intellectual rigor enjoyed throughout most of the university. Design begins as a rational linear process of convergent thinking in which a problem and a task are defined, but then – often suddenly – a divergence of thinking happens as imagination visualizes an unforeseen creative solution. The problem is, no satisfactory account has ever been given of creative imagination. It just happens – more often in some people than in others. Creativity is a paradoxical combination of analytic and synthetic thinking, and this fact alone precludes computers from making successful designs. Computers cannot be programmed with sufficient algorithms to represent the full complexity of variables inherent in the design problem, and computers cannot make creative leaps of imagination to envision a creative solution, so they are irrelevant to the deepest work of design thinking. It has been suggested recently that a satisfactory theoretical accounting for design creativity might be provided by complexity theory, principally because the central concept of this theory is autopoiesis. Certain systems, such as those of living organisms, exhibit great internal complexity united with a single external goal, and the systems themselves, through interaction with the environment, create unique ways of achieving that goal.

Design of Zirconia-Aluminum Functionally Graded Material for Buckling and Vibration Characteristics Enhancement of Beam/Column Structure

2017 ◽  
Vol 735 ◽  
pp. 100-107
Author(s):  
Nabeel Alshabatat ◽  
Adnan I.O. Zaid ◽  
Safwan M. Al-Qawabah
Keyword(s):  
Functionally Graded Material ◽  
Design Problem ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Excitation Frequency ◽  
Weight Ratio ◽  
Vibration Characteristics ◽  
Functionally Graded ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Material Tailoring ◽  
Graded Material

This paper presents a design method to optimize the material distribution of zirconia/aluminum-functionally graded material with respect to some buckling and vibration properties. The distribution of volume fractions of the FGM constituents is defined through the beam or column length by a trigonometric law. The finite element method is used for the buckling and vibration analysis, and a genetic algorithm is utilized for optimization of the chosen objective function. The efficiency of the method is demonstrated by two design problems. In the first design problem, FGM is used to maximize the buckling crical load to weight ratio. In the second design problem, the kinetic energy of a vibrating FGM beam is minimized at a specific excitation frequency. These design problems show that material tailoring of beam/column structures using FGM can result in substantial improvements of their buckling and vibration characteristics.

A study protocol: co-designing a mobile application to enhance communication, safety and wellbeing for people living at home with early stage dementia (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Davies ◽  
Bie Nio Ong ◽  
Sudeh Cheraghi-Sohi ◽  
Katherine Perryman ◽  
Caroline Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Application ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Mobile Apps ◽  
Care Service ◽  
Normalisation Process Theory ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
At Home

BACKGROUND Background: There is a growing interest in using mobile applications in supporting health and wellbeing. Evidence directly from people with dementia regarding the acceptability, usability and usefulness of mobile apps is limited. It builds on ‘My Health Guide’ which was co-designed with people with cognitive disabilities. . OBJECTIVE Objective This paper describes the protocol of a study evaluating an app designed for supporting wellbeing with people living with dementia, specifically focusing on enhanced safety through improved communication METHODS Method: The study will employ design research, using participatory qualitative research methods over three cycles of evaluation with service users, their families and practitioners. The study will be developed in partnership with a specialist home care service in England. A purposive case selection will be used to ensure that the cases exemplify differences in experiences. The app will be evaluated in a ‘walkthrough’ workshop by people living with early stage dementia and then trialled at home by up to 12 families in a ‘try-out’ cycle. An amended version will be evaluated in a final ‘walkthrough’ workshop in cycle 3. Data will be collected from at least four data sources during the try-out phase and analysed thematically (people with dementia, carers, practitioners and app usage). An explanatory, multiple-case study design will be used to synthesise and present the evidence from the three cycles drawing on Normalisation Process Theory to support interpretation of the findings. RESULTS Results: The study is ready to be implemented but has been paused to protect vulnerable individuals during the Coronavirus in 2020. The findings will be particularly relevant for understanding how to support vulnerable people living in the community during social distancing and the period following the pandemic, as well as providing insight into the challenges of social isolation arising from living with dementia CONCLUSIONS Discussion: Evaluating a mobile application for enhancing communication, safety and wellbeing for people living with dementia contributes to key ambitions enshrined in policy and practice, championing the use of digital technology and supporting people with dementia to live safely in their own homes. The study uses a co-design method to enable the voice of users with dementia to highlight the benefits and challenges of technology and shape future development of apps that potentially enhances safety through improved communication.

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