Understanding the Context of Multidisciplinary Design: Establishing Ecological Validity in the Study of Design Problem Solving

1993 ◽  
Vol 37 (16) ◽  
pp. 1082-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. McNeese ◽  
Brian S. Zaff ◽  
Clifford E. Brown ◽  
Maryalice Citera ◽  
Jonathan Selvaraj
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Human Factors ◽  
Concept Mapping ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Design Problem ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Activities

The need to understand the design process in all its complexity is motivated by an interest in the development of tools and technologies that would be capable of aiding collaborative design teams. This development effort depends upon an understanding of design activities as they occur within a real world context. Observations of design activities that are made without direct communication with the design team members may fail to capture many of the subtler aspects of the process - aspects that are best understood when described by the design team members themselves. In order to supplement observational studies, this paper presents a case study in which a dialog with members of a variety of collaborative design teams was established in order to elicit information about the nature of collaborative design. A knowledge acquisition technique, concept mapping, was used to achieve an understanding of the role of human factors specialists within the collaborative design process specific to the Air Force's system acquisition program. Results highlight various findings about the nature of design problem solving such as the way different organizational settings influence human factors input in the design process/product. The paper discusses the usefulness of concept mapping to capture in-depth design knowledge and how this type of knowledge complements other approaches to understanding design.

An Ontology-Based Competence Model for Collaborative Design

2009 ◽  
pp. 188-202
Author(s):  
Vladimir Tarasov ◽  
Kurt Sandkuhl ◽  
Magnus Lundqvist
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Ontology Matching ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Competence Model ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Ontology Language ◽  
Competence Models

Collaborative design in dispersed groups of engineers creates various kinds of challenges to technology, organization and social environment. This paper presents an approach to description and representation of the competences needed for a planned collaborative design project. The most important competence areas are identified starting from the nature of design work, problem solving in design teams, and working in distributed groups. The competence model is built structuring these areas according to three perspectives: general, cultural, and occupational competences. An ontological representation is proposed to implement the described model for collaborative design competence. Using an ontology language for representation of collaborative design competence models makes it possible to identify those individuals who are best suited for the collaboration by ontology matching. Furthermore, a software design team consisting of two persons was interviewed and competence profiles were created using the developed ontological representation. Modeling of the team members has confirmed that the proposed approach can be applied to modeling competences needed for collaborative design in engineering fields.

Investigating the Use of Large-Scale Immersive Computing Environments in Collaborative Design

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meisha Rosenberg ◽  
Judy M. Vance
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Team Members ◽  
3D Cad ◽  
Cad Models ◽  
Computing Environments ◽  
Design Ideas ◽  
Human Motions

Successful collaborative design requires in-depth communication between experts from different disciplines. Many design decisions are made based on a shared mental model and understanding of key features and functions before the first prototype is built. Large-Scale Immersive Computing Environments (LSICEs) provide the opportunity for teams of experts to view and interact with 3D CAD models using natural human motions to explore potential design configurations. This paper presents the results of a class exercise where student design teams used an LSICE to examine their design ideas and make decisions during the design process. The goal of this research is to gain an understanding of (1) whether the decisions made by the students are improved by full-scale visualizations of their designs in LSICEs, (2) how the use of LSICEs affect the communication of students with collaborators and clients, and (3) how the interaction methods provided in LSICEs affect the design process. The results of this research indicate that the use of LSICEs improves communication among design team members.

Integral Design: The Reflective Morphological Overview

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Zeiler ◽  
Perica Savanovic ◽  
Emile Quanjel
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Dutch Association ◽  
Building Physics

Integral Building Design is done by multi disciplinary design teams and aims at integrating all aspects from the different disciplines involved in a design for a building such as; archtitecture, construction, building physics and building services. It involves information exchange between participants within the design process in amounts not yet known before. To support this highly complex process an Integral Building Design methods is developed based on the combination of a prescriptive approach, Methodical Design, and a descriptive approach, Reflective practice. Starting from the Methodical Design approach by van den Kroonenberg, a more reflective approach is developed. The use of Integral Design within the design process results in a transparency on the taken design steps and the design decisions. Within the design process, the extended prescriptive methodology is used as a framework for reflection on design process itself. To ensure a good information exchange between different disciplines during the conceptual phase of design a functional structuring technique can be used; Morphological Overviews (MO). Morphology provides a structure to give an overview of the consider functions and their solution alternatives. By using this method it is presumed that it helps to structure the communication between the design team members and a such forms a basis for reflection on the design results by the design team members. This method is used in the education program at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven and was tested in workshops for students and for professionals from the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA) and the Dutch Association of Consulting Engineers (ONRI). Over 250 professionals participated in these workshops.

Effect of Team Size on Problem-Solving and Solution Quality: An Empirical Study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Jacobs ◽  
Matthew Pfarr ◽  
Mohammad Fazelpour ◽  
Abdul Koroma ◽  
Tseday Mesfin
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Design Solution ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Team Size ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Protocol Study ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The size of a team can affect how they tackle a design problem and solution quality. This paper presents a protocol study of the impact of team size on problem-solving and design solution quality. The protocols are coded with micro-strategies, and macro-strategies, and final solutions are scored using a rubric of meeting constraints, manufacturability, feasibility, and cost. The results show that the larger design team sizes analyze design solutions more frequently and propose solutions less than the smaller design teams. Among the three team sizes of 1, 3, and 5, the teams of three designers scored the best on final designs. These teams used a fair amount of both proposing solutions and analyzing solutions of micro-strategies. The teams of 5 designers use backtracking macro-strategies more frequent than teams of 3 and one because as the team size increases, more time is spent among team members to discuss previous ideas.

Design Team Convergence: The Influence of Example Solution Quality

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Fu ◽  
Jonathan Cagan ◽  
Kenneth Kotovsky
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Engineering ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Common Understanding

This study examines how engineering design teams converge to a common understanding of a design problem and its solution, how that is influenced by the information given to them before problem solving and how it is correlated with quality of produced solutions. To understand convergence, a model of the team members’ representations was sought through a cognitive engineering design study, specifically examining the effect of the introduction of a poor example solution and a good example solution prior to problem solving. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) was used to track the teams’ convergence. Introducing a poor example solution was shown to have a slowing effect on teams’ convergence over time and quality of design, while the good example solution was not significantly different than the control (no example solution) in its effects on convergence, but did cause higher quality solutions. This may have implications for design team performance in practice.

scholarly journals Articulating (mis)understanding across design discipline interfaces at a design team meeting

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Luck
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Multidisciplinary Design ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Communicative Ability ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Design Expertise

AbstractCommunication is both the problem and the solution to misunderstanding. It is the human communicative ability to display understanding to resolve misunderstandings that plays an important part in the organization of the design inputs to a construction project. Ambiguity and uncertainty, as different forms of misunderstanding, are studied in this article, as they are manifest in the conversation at a design meeting. In this setting the coordination of bothin situdesign activities and the planning of design tasks takes place in real time, in conversation. Exhibited are several ways that design ambiguities and uncertainties can be seen in the interactional details of a multidisciplinary design team's conversation, to then report on how different design expertise featured in the raising of, and attempts at resolving, the misunderstandings that arose. In the course of this meeting, ambiguity and uncertainty were observed not as neat, discrete phenomena but were interwoven in the conversation. This characteristic poses difficulties in the disambiguation of the problem-solving response to each form of misunderstanding and further develops our understanding of design as it is communicated and conducted in social interaction. Finally, some implications from this study are put forward to inform the design of support for collaborative design.

Causing a Stir

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilo POTOCNJAK-OXMAN
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
Early Stages

Stir was a crowd-voted grants platform aimed at supporting creative youth in the early stages of an entrepreneurial journey. Developed through an in-depth, collaborative design process, between 2015 and 2018 it received close to two hundred projects and distributed over fifty grants to emerging creatives and became one of the most impactful programs aimed at increasing entrepreneurial activity in Canberra, Australia. The following case study will provide an overview of the methodology and process used by the design team in conceiving and developing this platform, highlighting how the community’s interests and competencies were embedded in the project itself. The case provides insights for people leading collaborative design processes, with specific emphasis on some of the characteristics on programs targeting creative youth

The Influence of Team Goal Alignment and Awareness on Human-Centered Design Team Decision-Making Strategy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivek Rao ◽  
Ananya Krishnan ◽  
Jieun Kwon ◽  
Euiyoung Kim ◽  
Alice Agogino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Personal Goals ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Goal Alignment ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Team Decision Making ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Team Decision ◽  
Team Alignment

Abstract Design team decision-making underpins all activities in the design process. Simultaneously, goal alignment within design teams has been shown to be essential to the success of team activities, including engineering design. However, the relationship between goal alignment and design team decision-making remains unclear. In this exploratory work, we analyze six student design teams’ decision-making strategies underlying 90 selections of design methods over the course of a human-centered design project. We simultaneously examine how well each design team’s goals are aligned in terms of their perception of shared goals and their awareness of team members’ personal goals at the midpoint and end of the design process, along with three other factors underpinning team alignment at the midpoint. We report three preliminary findings about how team goal alignment and goal awareness influence team decision-making strategy that, while lacking consistent significance, invite further research. First, we observe that a decrease in awareness of team members’ personal goals may lead student teams to use a different distribution of decision-making strategies in design than teams whose awareness stays constant or increases. Second, we find that student teams exhibiting lower overall goal alignment scores appear to more frequently use agent-driven decision-making strategies, while student teams with higher overall goal alignment scores appear to more frequently use process-driven decision-making strategies. Third, we find that while student team alignment appears to influence agent- and process-driven strategy selection, its effect on outcome-driven selection is less conclusive. While grounded in student data, these findings provide a starting place for further inquiry into of designerly behavior at the nexus of teaming and design decision-making.

scholarly journals Visualised Frames: How Sketching Influences Framing Behaviour in Design Teams

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 419-428
Author(s):  
Yujing Yang ◽  
Natalie Brik ◽  
Peter de Jong ◽  
Milene Guerreiro Goncalves
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teams ◽  
Creative Design ◽  
Design Teams ◽  
Process And Outcome ◽  
Educational Implications ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Creative Design Process

AbstractFraming is a crucial skill for connecting problem and solution spaces in the creative design process, both for individuals and teams. Frames are implicit in individuals’ cognitive thinking, but the creation of shared frames plays a vital role in collaborative design. Many studies have attempted to describe the framing process, but little is still known about how to support designers in framing, specifically in teams. This paper addresses this gap, by exploring the connection between sketching and framing within interdisciplinary teams. Following a qualitative and explorative approach, we have investigated the process and outcome of five interdisciplinary teams. We identified that sketching assists in the creation and elaboration of frames. Furthermore, in tandem with discussion and reflection, sketching helps increase the chance of a frame to survive within the design process. Our findings have practical and educational implications for improving the creative design process in interdisciplinary teams.

A Cooperative-Collaborative Design System for Multi-Disciplinary Mechanical Design

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiqiang Chen ◽  
Zahed Siddique
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Mechanical Design ◽  
System Level ◽  
Design System ◽  
Design Collaboration ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Design Process Model

The emergence of computer and network technology has provided opportunities for researchers to construct and build systems to support dynamic, real-time, and collaborative engineering design in a concurrent manner. This paper provides an understanding of the product design in a distributed environment where designers are in different geographic locations and are required to be involved in the design process to ensure successful product design. A design process model that captures the major interactions among stakeholders is presented, based on the observation of cooperation and collaboration. The stakeholders’ interactions are divided into activity and system level to distinguish the interactions in group design activities and design perspective evolution. An initial computer implementation of the design model is presented. The design system consists of a set of tools associated with design and a management system to facilitate distributed designers to support various design activities, especially conceptual design. Our research emphasis of design collaboration in this paper is: (i) Model a Cooperative-collaborative design process; (ii) Support synchronized design activities; and (iii) Structure the complex relations of various design perspectives from engineering disciplines.

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