Designerly ways of knowing

This is the third paper in a series being published in Design Studies, which aims to establish the theoretical bases for treating design as a coherent discipline of study. The first contribution in the series was from Bruce Archer, in the very first issue of Design Studies, and the second was from Gerald Nadler, in Vol 1, No 5. Further contributions are invited.

Here, Higel Cross takes up the arguments for a ‘third area’ of education—design—that were outlined by Archer. He further defines this area by contrasting it with the other two—sciences and humanities—and goes on to consider the criteria which design must satisfy to be acceptable as a part of general education. Such an acceptance must imply a reorientation from the instrumental aims of conventional design education, towards intrinsic values. These values derive from the ‘designerly ways of knowing’. Because of a common concern with these fundamental ‘ways of knowing’, both design research and design education are contributing to the development of design as a discipline.     

Complicating the ‘logic of design’

A ‘logic of design’ was outlined by March in 1976. Since then it has gained wide acceptance among designers and recently has been used in several knowledge-based systems of design. This paper makes a suggestion for extending the model by taking into consideration the logical nature of the laws in the argument form. This focus on the logical nature of laws brings out interesting and subtle differences in the inference process which are lost in the current analysis. It also results in some interesting complications. It means that it is no longer adequate to talk of the three phases of design — performance prediction, knowledge acquisition, and design generation — in the simple categories of deduction, induction and abduction, respectively. In particular, it means that performance prediction is not necessarily (or even usually) a deductive inference.     

Knowledge-based systems in the design activity

This paper considers the evolution of knowledge-based systems (KBS) in relation to the design activity. In order to do this effectively it commences with a definition of a core design activity in relation to products which are either conventional or novel. KBS are broken down in sympathy with the decomposition of a design, i.e., whole design, partial or sub-system design, component design. The problem of knowledge elicitation and the variability of the constraints at each level of design are considered and conclusions drawn in terms of conventional and novel products.

A hypothesis—‘to be or not to be’—is proposed covering the conceptual design spectrum which suggests that the way forward is via a system of linked KMs (knowledge modules) to be designed using multi-disciplinary teams, since it is considered that KBS are products in their own right and should be treated as such.     

Design cosmologies and brain research

Perception is a process of creative construction which relies upon two modelling processes, verbal and non-verbal. Researchers believe that these processes are located respectively in the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The non-verbal (right brain) process plays a very important part in the act of creation, and designers develop means of accessing the right brain model. This accessing is done through ‘representational systems’ which are sensory based, and which involve a suspension of analytic thought. This process of accessing the non-dominant hemisphere is very similar to techniques used in hypnosis. The author maintains that the processes used by designers in their work involves the use of a different representational system than that in which design data is available, and that this results in an increase of solution poverty. He suggests that design is essentially a self-therapeutic process—an indispensable part of each person. Processes which exclude the user are in this respect seriously deficient. He argues for a political and social solution to the problems of environmental design—to a return to local autonomy and user participation.     

An appraisal of ecolabelling from a design perspective

This paper considers the design implications of the European ecolabelling scheme. The aims and procedures of this procedures of this product level market instrument are examined and appraised with regard to impact on product design. The paper concludes that ecolabelling, as presently defined, will have a limited affect on promoting widespreads design and provision of environmentally sensitive products. A ‘product selection model’ is therefore proposed that makes for more effective ecolabelling. This in turn is developed to provide an ‘ecodesign emphasis model’ to indicate design options that can shift products towards an optimum and sustainable ‘green’ target.     

In search of design excellence

This paper is based on part of the results of an extensive survey of the role of new product design in international competitiveness. It reviews the literature on design management and highlights some weaknesses in the way in which design is managed in many UK industries, which apparently places the UK at a competitive disadvantage in manufacturing exports when compared with their major foreign competitors. The paper examines ways in which the management of design many be enhanced to improve design quality and achieve greater competitiveness. It was found that to maximize achievements in design, innovators must not only create awareness, but also create a climate in which everyone is committed to design quality throughout the organization. A wide range of functions involved in design management — managerial, marketing, technical, financial, etc. — must also be ‘happily married’ to achieve product excellence and hence market success.     

An expert system for preliminary numerical design modelling

This paper is based upon the premise that computers can do more than just ‘number crunching’ to assist a designer in his task. Key features of the design process where traditional computer-aided design (CAD) approaches have had limited success are presented. The approach of expert systems, which shows promise of assisting in these features, is outlined and a system based on this approach, DESIGNER, described. This system can be applied to any numerical design problem and is illustrated through an example from preliminary ship design.     

Integration of design systems for energy related applications

An EPSRC funded Engineering Design Centre (EDC) has been established at The Queen's University of Belfast to develop integrated design software for energy related applications. Software is being developed for the design of two-stroke engines, power station controllers and wave power stations. These ‘real’ design problems are highly complex with a large number of interrelated variables resulting in a wide range of design permutations. Although at an early state of application, the advantages of using object orientated design/programming methodologies is being demonstrated in the development of ‘structured’ design software. It is concluded that a balance must be struck between the complexity and the accuracy of the analytic models describing the interrelationship between the variables. This depends on the stage of the design optimization process. It is argued that complex optimization routines can only be justified when the process is well-defined and accurately modelled. Modelling of many systems includes approximations which have a more significant effect on the design optimization process than some of the variables.     

Design method and scientific method

A recurring theme in recent design theory has been a desire to relate design method to scientific method: to create the ‘science of design’ or a ‘design science’. There is an inherent paradox in such a desire since design and science are clearly very dissimilar kinds of activities. Further, the concept of ‘scientific method’ now seems to be in epistemological chaos. For these reasons, attempts to model design method on scientific method seem misplaced. It is proposed that it would be more fruitful to regard design as a technology, rather than as a science. The paper seeks to establish the basis for such a view, drawing especially on the idea that both design and technology involve the application of types of knowledge other than the purely ‘scientific’ kind.     

Two functions of analogical reasoning in design: a cognitive-psychology approach

On the basis of data collected in three empirical studies conducted on industrial designers, this paper identifies two different types of ‘spontaneous’ use of analogy in design. Focus is on the first ‘stages’ of analogical reasoning, i.e. construction of a target representation, and search and retrieval of a source. At the action-execution level, analogies are used in order to solve the current design problem; at the action-management level, in order to make the action-execution process cognitively more economical. Differences between the uses concern their dependence on the routine character of the task, the distance between target and source, and their link with creativity and reuse (or case-based reasoning).     

A sustainable product design model

There are major challenges for the designer to now include Sustainable Development aspects into his/her design; particularly related to the social and wider economic impacts. The designer must, more than ever before, take into consideration the views and concerns of all the ‘interested parties’ – stakeholders. There are many topics – issues and concerns to consider and often they can be conflicting. The need is to examine the Sustainable Development risks and benefits associated with any particular design so improvements can be made. Both a ‘concept’ model and a Bournemouth University practical model are described which allows this risk/benefit assessment to be made in a structured manner on a wide range of topics. The assessment can examine the product, the company manufacturing the product and the manufacturing site. The major social, economic and environmental risks and benefits is tabulated or presented graphically for ease of evaluation in order to modify the design and so improve the Sustainable Development aspects.     

Expert systems and the emergence of teledesign

This paper considers the extent to which the amateur use of expert systems for home design challenges traditional views of the design process. The issues are examined in the context of competing definitions of design. The emergence of a design process characterised as ‘teledesign’ is then considered, wherein retailers provide a CAD/CAM service to consumers, allowing the latter to use expert systems to modify template designs and get products fabricated to their own specifications. Such a system may be seen to empower consumers as designers, rather than just selectors of products, and would differ considerably from established paradigms of design, manufacture and consumption, such as that given by Baudrillard.     

Long-term effects of legislation and local promotion of child restraint use in motor vehicles in Sweden

The main objective is to study long-term effects of legislation and promotion of child-restraint use in motor vehicles. Subgoals are to describe the level of restraint use in cars and changes in mortality and morbidity patterns in regard to differences among age groups and geographical areas (morbidity). The study areas were; ‘The First Four’, ‘The Six Counties’, ‘The Rest of Sweden’, and ‘Sweden as a whole’, and the population were two age groups — 0–6 and 7–14 years. The incidence of restraint use comes from observations of car-seat-belt usage. Outcome evaluation was based on hospital-discharge data 1978–1996 and mortality statistics 1970–1996. The level of restraint use for children in the front seat was 97% in 1988 and was equal to 1995. Mortality data shows a decrease of 2.8% on an average per year, 76% over the study period. A significant change over time in the two intervention areas was shown (annual changes of −2.8 and −1.8%), but not in the rest of Sweden. The local authorities that started early with preventive programs, such as safety seat loan schemes and those having an organised safety-promotion program showed a much better improvement than the rest of Sweden. There is a need for appropriate information for local action on childhood injury prevention to accompany national legislation.     

Wertheim's hypothesis on 'highway hypnosis': empirical evidence from a study on motorway and conventional road driving

This paper aims to study the phenomenon known as ‘highway hypnosis’ or ‘driving without attention mode’, which has been defined as a state showing sleepiness signs and attention slip resulting from driving a motor vehicle for a long period in a highly predictable environment with low event occurrence, this being the case with motorways and very familiar roads [Highway hypnosis: a theoretical analysis. In: Gale, A.G., Brown, I.D., Haslegrave, C.M., Moorhead, I., Taylor, S. (Eds.), Vision in Vehicles-III. Elsevier, North-Holland, pp. 467–472]. According to Wertheim’s hypothesis on ‘highway hypnosis’, long-term driving on motorways and conventional roads, e.g. main roads, secondary roads—implies differences in the predictability of the movement pattern of the visual stimulation, in the eye musculature activity and in the type of feedback used in visual information processing (mostly extra-retinal on motorways and retinal and extra-retinal on conventional roads). All this ultimately leads to alertness differences between both road types. Our research is intended to provide empirical evidence from the hypothesis, based on the data recorded during the actual driving experience of a group of subjects on a motorway and a conventional road. We studied whether or not significant alertness differences were found-measured by EEG data relative to time periods of on-target eye-tracking performance—between motorway and conventional road driving. Our results partially support the hypothesis, as drowsiness proved to be higher on motorways than on conventional roads during the final driving period but not during the starting stage, when the opposite trend was noticed. This result could be explained by the fact that during the first driving periods the effects of the stimulus movement predictability had not yet become apparent, since they tend to show after a long drive.     

On the dynamic behaviour of a long missile pipe after impact on a rigid target pipe

Two modes of deformation of a long missile pipe following an impact on a rigid target pipe of larger radius are analysed. It is assumed that the missile pipe can form either a ‘nutcracker’ type of mechanism or simply ‘wrap around’ the target pipe. The influence on the dynamic behaviour of the missile pipe of the parameters like the length, kinetic energy and the plastic moment of the missile pipe and the target pipe radius are discussed. A numerical procedure is presented to obtain the maximum force of interaction developed between the two pipes which also takes account of possible transition from a ‘nutcracker’ mode to the ‘wrap-around’ mode.     

Frames of reference in architectural design: analysing the hyperacclamation (A-h-a-!)

The discovery of a creative solution occasionally corresponds to the sudden attainment of a mental insight. Our purpose is to formally describe this phenomenon and the cognitive mechanisms that lead to it. The approach is based on the replicability of just such an insight which underlies the solution to a well known puzzle: the nine-dot puzzle. The insight coincides with the realization that the problem can only be solved when a spurious constraint is removed. Two experimental results are reported: one on the nine-dot puzzle and the other on an architectural sketch design problem. The sketch design problem was structured with several restricting frames of reference to create a situation analogous to the nine-dot puzzle. Subjects' design behaviour was analysed to identify the mechanisms used in achieving the mental insights which allow designers to go beyond the implicit restrictions of these frames. A general model, called SMI-GI, of the mental insight based design and discovery process is described. This model foresees a computer system that can be used to simulate the mental insight mechanism and consequently lead to the systematic examination of this aspect of design creativity.     

A case study in action research

This case study demonstrates in practice some of the principles discussed in Roberts' paper. The work is based on the ‘Art and the built environment’ project, which is aimed at encouraging and developing the study of buildings and environments as part of the art curriculum in secondary schools. The project has raised questions about the appropriate media for conducting such study, the development of design awareness in children, and the social relevance of expressing and communicating ideas about the built environment.     

基于文献计量的文创产品设计研究特征与趋势

目的 探析我国文创产品设计研究特征及未来的研究趋势。方法 应用CiteSpace文献计量软件对CNKI网站收录的高质量期刊文章进行可视化分析,随后结合文献阅读工作,从研究方法分类视角对我国文创产品设计研究进行系统梳理。结论 可将我国文创产品设计研究分为3个阶段:2015年以前的萌芽时期、2016—2018年的起步和发展时期、2019年以后的多元化发展时期。从整体来看,该领域的核心作者及发文机构较为分散,但发展态势良好,研究持续升温。从核心机构分布来看,主要分布在我国东部及中部地区,来自各类高校的不同专业领域,覆盖艺术学、设计学、管理学等多个学科。从研究主题来看,包括设计元素转化、实验设计理论探析、创新视角、用户视角产品设计、产品设计链条以及实验设计应用6个方面。在未来的研究中,场馆文创、文创产品设计开发以及文化创意产业方向将成为该领域研究的重要趋势。     

Back to the future with CAD: its impact on product design and development

This paper briefly examines the history of the management and organisation of the product development cycle. It looks at some of the key factors that have affected product development, and how information technology through CAD may have opened the door to a simultaneous product design process that has more in common with ‘older’ craft-based methods than those developed in the recent industrial era.     

基于TRIZ及ABD的创新设计研究

应用基于类比的设计（ABD）和发明问题解决理论（TRIZ）的设计过程均要采用已往成功的设计实例,使两种过程具有相似性; 在分析ABD及TRIZ设计过程原理的基础上,提出将TRIZ解模型及相应的设计实例作为ABD的源设计,由类比设计过程确定目标设计及新设计的方法。造纸机改进设计实例说明了该方法的应用。