30 October 2012

A Taxonomic Classification of Visual Design Representations

Paper: "A Taxonomic Classification of Visual Design Representations Used by Industrial Designers and Engineering Designers" by Pei, Campbell and Evans. The Design Journal, 14(1), 2011

Abstract: In the context of new product development (NPD), research has shown that not having a common understanding of visual design representations (VDRs) has affected collaboration between industrial designers and engineering designers. The aim of the research presented in this paper was two-fold. Firstly, to identify the representations employed by industrial designers and engineering designers during NPD from a literature survey. Secondly, to define and categorize these representations in the form of a taxonomy that is a systematic organization of VDRs that are presently dispersed in the literature. For the development of the taxonomy, four measures encompassing orthogonality, spanning, completeness and usability were employed. It resulted in four groups consisting of sketches, drawings, models and prototypes. Validation was undertaken by means of an interview survey and further, presenting the taxonomy at an international conference. The results showed that no issues were raised by the respondents concerning the structure of the taxonomy or its components.

Notes: This is the most useful and complete classification that I've seen of sketches, drawings, models and prototypes used in the design process. I'm surprised that -according to Google Scholar- it has only been referenced once since its publication in 2011. I reallly hope that more design researchers refer to this work, since we really need to build consensus on such fundamental concepts and techniques. I'm using this for teaching and also plan to use it as a key reference for future research papers.

Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts

Paper: "Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts" by Bruno Latour. Link:
www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/50-MISSING-MASSES-GB.pdf

Intro: People are free to interpret the precise meaning of an artifact, but they can’t simply tell an automobile engine that it should get 100 miles per gallon. The laws of nature and the capacities of a particular design limit the ways in which artifacts can be integrated into a sociotechnical system. In this chapter, one of the foremost  contrib-utors to the actor network approach, Bruno Latour, explores how artifacts can be deliberately designed to both replace human action and constrain and shape the actions of other humans. His study demonstrates how people can ‘‘act at a distance’’ through the technol-ogies they create and implement and how, from a user’s perspective, a technology can ap-pear to determine or compel certain actions.

Notes:

  1. "There is a problem with doors", the writing style of Latour is clever and engaging, reading this paper is quite an experience in itself, so I will only add my first 5 notes here as it'd be quite a challenge to capture the depth of his ideas in a short list. Just read it.
  2. "Every time you want to know what a nonhuman (an object) does, simply imagine what other humans or other nonhumans would have to do were this character not present. This imaginary substitution exactly sizes up the role, or function, of this little character.
  3. "A profound temporal shift takes place when nonhumans are appealed to; time is folded"
  4. "Prescription is the moral and ethical dimension of mechanisms... We have been able to delegate to nonhumans not only force as we have known it for centuries but also values, duties and ethics"
  5. "How can the prescriptions encoded in the mechanism be brought out in words? By replacing them by strings of sentences (often in the imperative) that are uttered (silently and continuously) by the mechanisms for the benefit of those who are mechanized: do this, do that, behave this way, don't go that way, you may do so, be allowed to go there... Another way of hearing what the machines silently did and said are the accidents"

19 October 2012

Ideation metrics


Paper: Jami J. Shah, Steve M. Smith, Noe Vargas-Hernandez, Metrics for measuring ideation effectiveness, Design Studies, Volume 24, Issue 2, March 2003, Pages 111-134

Note:
"This paper presented one important aspect of research that will some day lead to models of design ideation. We identiļ¬ed four types of outcome based metrics. Quantity, quality, novelty, and variety. We developed objective procedures for evaluating each... Quantity and variety scores apply to the entire idea generation session, while novelty and quality scores are computed for each idea"

Read next: Brent A. Nelson, Jamal O. Wilson, David Rosen, Jeannette Yen, Refined metrics for measuring ideation effectiveness, Design Studies, Volume 30, Issue 6, November 2009, Pages 737-743

18 October 2012

Abductive reasoning

Paper: The Language of Abduction in Choosing Innovation
A. Dong, R. Mounarath and D. Lovallo, 2nd International Conference on Design Creativity (ICDC2012)

Abstract: The selection of an  innovation project to take forward for product development, is
a complex, strategic, managerial decision which shares one key part with concept ideation and
evaluation in design: assessing creativity. This problem is especially pronounced for products
that  do not yet exist or have never been mass-marketed. In this paper, we go beyond the
question of how to select or identify the most creative project to  consider the following: How
can this decision be affected by forms of logical reasoning? Through a qualitative content
analysis of committees selecting an innovation project to take forward, we show how forms of
logical reasoning have an impact on the assessment of creativity and can alter the
characterization of whether a project is creative or not.

Notes:

  1. Definitions: "Deduction is a form of logical reasoning from a premise and an observation leading to a conclusion... Induction is a general principle derived from observations... Abduction is the most likely explanation for a set of observations"
  2. Interesting: "The literature is nearly silent on how these forms of reasonins might appear in natural language"
  3. The authors review 12 groups of 5 participants who reviewed (committee deliberation) 7 final year capstone design studio projects (Design Computing at USYD)
  4. The projects evaluated have "similar levels of technical feasibility, novelty and potential customer value" (but this assessment remains implicit)
  5. "In abductive framing, the committee... attempts to explain through questioning, proposing or hypothesizing the conditions of possibility for the existence of the product"
  6. Conclusion: "We do not prescribe abduction as the preferred mode of reasoning in choosing innovation; rather, we point out that the determination of the innovation projects is altered by the form of logical reasoning"
Read next: V. Krishnan and Karl T. Ulrich. 2001. Product Development Decisions: A Review of the Literature.Manage. Sci. 47, 1 (January 2001), 1-21.

17 October 2012

Design Transformation Principles

Paper:
Innovations in Design Through Transformation: A Fundamental Study of Transformation Principles
Vikramjit Singh, Stewart M. Skiles, Jarden E. Krager, Kristin L. Wood, Dan Jensen, and Robert Sierakowski, J. Mech. Des. 131, 081010 (2009), DOI:10.1115/1.3125205

Abstract:
The act of creating a new product, system, or process is an innovation; the result of excogitation, study and experimentation. It is an inductive and/or deductive process. The inductive process involves studying systems that exist, for example, in nature, patents and products, and inducing from the behavior of these systems elemental features for innovating novel products. The deductive process involves deducing such aspects from hypothetical concepts and situations where systems or products could exist. By the application of a combined inductive and deductive approach, this paper reports on a methodology for the creation of innovative products with a broader functional repertoire than traditional designs. This breed of innovative products is coined as transformers, transforming into different configurations or according to different states. Current design theory lacks a systematic methodology for the creation of products that have the ability to transform. This paper identifies analogies in nature, patents, and products along withhypothesizing the existence of such products in different environments andsituations. Transformation design principles are extracted by studying key design features and functional elements that make up a transforming product. These principles are defined and categorized according to their roles in general transformations. The principles and categorizations are then validated and applied to conceptualize transforming products as part of aninnovative design process.

Notes:
1. The authors explain (graphically) their research methods by introducing two complementary processes, which they call inductive and deductive. One of the questions I have relates to the deductive process, which is only briefly explained at the end of Section 2 and could be interpreted as an abductive process according to Charles Peirce. 

2. Another interesting discussion relates to the potential advantages and detriments of transformers (or reconfigurable products). I think that both of these need to be expanded and studied in much more detail.

3. In the future, it may also be very relevant to transcend the limitation of studying only mechanical transformations, since energy and information are also fundamental elements and very necessary for the construction of a thorough set of design principles.

4. The paper states repeatedly the need for a "foundational theory of transformational design", I couldn't agree more but this paper reminds us the need to further discuss what type of design theory or theories are required. References to relevant work would be welcome.

5. Design principles are defined here at least in four somewhat different ways: as causal principles (3.1), as generalized directive and as guidelines (4.1) and as representations of the transformation potential (4.3). The categorization process described in section 3.3 mentions that the grouping and coding of "facilitators" obtained from the inductive and deductive search is further organised into "super groups" from which "higher level facilitators" are extracted. From these, three general categories are then presented: expand/collapse, expose/cover and fuse/divide. This taxonomy is, arguably, the main contribution of this paper.

6. As the design principles are explained in 4.3, one mention is made to "primary functions". I think this leads to a very promising and interesting question: In transformation design, what defines a primary/secondary function?

7. Principles 1 and 2 could require a clearer distinction, for example the example in Fig 16b shows a water lilly as an example of expose/cover, yet it may seem to fit the expand/collapse definition: "change dimensions to bring about an increase/decrease along an axis, plane or volume.

8. Would an umbrella or a balloon be considered a transformer? Both seem to embody principle 1.

9. Personally, I consider section 4.4 to be the clearest and most substantial contribution of this paper: the description and illustration of all 20 transformation facilitators. Such taxonomy is highly valuable and is the type of analytic and systematic work that our field needs.

10. Reference to follow up:
  1. Siddiqi and Weck 2008 "Modeling methods and conceptual design principles for reconfigurable systems", ASME J Mech Des 130(10), 101102.
  2. Skiles, S. M., Singh, V., Krager, J. E., Seepersad, C. C., Wood, K. L., and Jensen, D., 2006, “Adapted Concept Generation and Computational Techniques for the Application of A Transformer Design Theory,” Proceedings of the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Philadelphia, PA.

The context and aims of this blog

I started reading "design research" papers and books 12 years ago as a yound PhD student. I have no idea how many papers I've read since, probably in the region of five thousand. I've been taking notes using different tools from napkins to Word and from Evernote to Notepad. Most of my notes are either lost or stored somewhere in a hard disk. Today I decided to start with this new format, hoping that my notes will be available online for anyone to access.

The goal of this blog is to add one reference a day to a paper, article or book in some way related to my own personal and arbitrary research interests. The tags will serve to organise what is likely to grow into a chaotic mess. I may or may not have the time and energy to add a comment or even a complete review (I will be restricted to published material of course), but hopefully these notes will be useful to connect and understand some of the main ideas and open questions in design research.

I will try to do this daily.