Designers of consumer products are concerned with how their products will be perceived by consumers in the market place. The materials used in the manufacture of these products become the media by which the interface between the consumer and the designed product is perceived. Our perception towards these products will be strongly infleunced by the sensory interaction with the materials through both visual and non-visual means. Compared with the engineering properties of materials, sensory properties, perceived images, meanings and values of a material in the human-product interface, referred to as the 'material representation' are far from being systematically investigated. This is the background from which this research was initiated. The aim of this research is to explore the material representation in a holistic system, which is referred to as the visual narrative matrix. The matrix is created in an empirical way but based on a combination of theoretical and experimental research. Controlled experimental investigation is focused on the relationship between the material sensory properties (texture) and human subjective response via the sensation of touch. The theoretical analysis and the experimental findings contribute to the development of a new databse. the database will make it possible for designers, artists and engineers, through innovative treatment and application of existing and emerging materials, to be able to create artefacts more effectively matching human perceptual, sensory and emotional expectation. The experiemental findings and the visual narrative matrix are original. This thesis includes the research background, literature review, research methodology, the results from controlled experimental research, and the development of a matrix of material representation. By carrying out controlled experimental research on texture, it has been possible to identify a way in which people subjectively describe a material texture by touch (Dimension-Lexicons). Slight differences in these descriptive lexicons have been analysed in terms of gender, material surface finish, sensory conditions, and control groups etc. Further in-depth experimental research has revealed correlations between various subjective responses within texture perception dimensions. Understanding of these correlations will assist in the selection of an optimal material texture. A series of texture perception maps have been produced which directly display the nature of texture perception in terms of material categories and sensory modalities. In parallel, through experimental testing, the quantitative relationships between subjective response to texture and the objective physical parameters of materials have also been reported. This has provided important information about human sensory perception for the manufacturing and processing of materials. All of these experimental results have been integrated into the matrix of material representation.

This research evaluates the role of industrial design in the development of technologically innovatory products (t i p's) designed for untrained users. Technologically innovatory products are studied because of their unpredictable patterns of use, visual identity and market potential. Untrained users are studied since it is likely that they are less well equipped to adjust to new design characteristics than trained users and thus present a greater requirement for a self-explanatory product identity. The thesis examines recent technological developments and their potential effects on product design. A working definition of the t i p is developed and particular problems posed for manufacturers, designers and users identified. Contemporary secondary source material is employed, together with primary source material culled from interviews with design practitioners and theorists in Europe and the United States. The concept of product identity is explored with reference to the differences apparent in professional, domestic and leisure contexts. Four research hypotheses are established, the principal of which states "that a series of differentials exists between product design intentions and medium to long term user needs and preferences". A research method for making direct comparisons between design intentions and user responses utilising a two-part questionnaire is described. The pilot and application of the method to a single t i p - a microwave oven - is documented. Responses are divided into four groups: operational, stylistic, manufacturing and technological, which facilitate the direct comparison of user and design responses. The research demonstrates that there are perceptual mismatches between designer and user responses and between members of the design team itself. The thesis concludes with an examination of the results with respect to their detrimental effects on product use, and a discussion of the potential reapplication of the method as both a research and design tool.

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The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of cross-functional knowledge conversion within Taiwanese high-technology small and medium-sized enterprise's (SME) new product development (NPD) teams. An analysis of 107 Taiwanese high-technology SMEs' management characteristics found a complex knowledge structure is better adopted for cross-functional knowledge conversion during the NPD period than existing or simple knowledge structure models. In addition, a Processual strategy moderated the relationships between organisational knowledge structures and four-all steps within knowledge conversion to knowledge transfer; in contrast, Classical strategy was shown only to have moderated effects during the planning and developing stage of the NPD period. Following Blackler's (1995) organisational theory, this study also found the socialisation and externalisation stages require both knowledge features from communication-intensive organisation and symbolic-analyst-dependent organisation within the NPD team's knowledge conversion. Knowledge features from a knowledge-routinised organisation are required at the combination stage; and finally, the knowledge features from an expert-dependent organisation are required at the internalisation stage. Observed strategies can be categorised as being Classical or Processual oriented (Whittington, 1993). This study describes how the strategy moderates the relationship between the organisational knowledge structures and the four knowledge-creation steps, socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation for NPD teams. Results showed that the requirement upon strategy differed among stages within the NPD period. During the transfer process, Processual strategy moderated the relationships between organisational knowledge structures and steps within conversion to knowledge transfer during the planning, developing, marketing and commercialisation stages of the NPD period even the negative moderating effects showed in some stages. In contrast, Classical strategy was shown only to have negative moderating effects during the planning and developing stage. Survey results also showed that the highly formalised communication model and periodic meetings advocated by Song et al (1996 & 2002) were gradually replaced by a bounded transfer and less formalised approach. However this study does not find that a consistent approach to strategy, using either PS or CS is likely to smooth the NPD process between marketing and R & D in high technology Taiwanese firms. It is possible that other schools, such as the Evolutionary or Systemic schools suggested by Whittington may fit more closely than the two tested in this study; and this will be the topic of further investigation. However, it is clear that different stages require contradictory processes and outcome routines; thus it is likely that conflict and inconsistency is actually the normal by-product of successful NPD's knowledge conversion.

Redefinition design is a special case of speculative and critical design; it is intended to be used by designers in facing otherwise recalcitrant or refractory design situations. One subject that generates more refractory design situations than most is money. Thus, money will be the vehicle used to derive, articulate and apply the redefinition design methods. The future of money is heavily informed by ideas from its past. In this regard, the services and systems based around money, including industries focused on design, often embody a conservative culture that perpetuates old paradigms onto new technology. In this dissertation, I propose two research questions: RQ1: Paradigm Paralysis – what characterises the underlying assumptions that heavily inform the design and development of money? In the context of investigating the new methods associated with Redefinition Design, we firstly begin to examine and interrogate underlying and often tacit assumptions, taking the specific case of money. Though this question I elucidate the fundamental principles of money, which lie at the core of the longstanding mainstream monetary paradigm. The totality of money is broken down into four main constituents: monetary artefacts, currency systems, monetary mentifacts and finally the functional axioms of money. Revealing these core principles, and analysing them within specific cultural contexts, will inform the methods used in the development of the practical work. RQ2: Paradigm Breakout – What characterises a methodology that can facilitate designers to step beyond the underlying assumptions informing the development of money? This research has yielded strategies that allow the radical re-conception and design of currency systems and monetary artefacts, through the application of a redefinition design approach. The Redefinition Design methods developed in this research enable the designer to identify suitable alternative cultural contexts, such as historic or literary contexts. The methods prompt us to deconstruct these contexts, then reconstruct them with a design proposal that resonates with all cultural levels of the given context. Hence, in the case of entrenched social technologies like money, the resulting Redefinition Design proposals are harmonious with the alternative culture, but incongruous in the context of contemporary culture. These methods do not instigate a paradigm shift but rather a paradigm breakout.

This practice-led PhD explores ‘how highly specialised and innovative new design practice is made accessible to new audiences in the context of the museum’ (AHRC CDA Award call, RCA, 2010). Innovative new design was further specified as ‘highly academic, speculative, critical and experimental, often dealing with new technologies or ways of working, developing design as an agent of social or cultural change.’The call challenged designers to ‘articulate their processes and practices in ways that can be understood by, and influence, the general public.’ This PhD consists of a case study in the form of a six-month residency at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in 2013, entitled ‘The Department of Seaweed’ (DoS), as well as a design theoretical contextualisation of its framework, methods and outcomes. Among these are insights into how to co-develop design outcomes and knowledge by working with natural resources. This led me to propose a new method for cospeculative design that integrates open ended material exploration and systems level speculation through participatory critical practice in a museum residency. The outlook of design thus shifts from critical speculation towards design for transition, set against the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. The setting for this thesis is the interrelation of the following three subjects: Methods of Making, Transition Design and Museum Residencies. I established the DoS as a community of practice (CoP) around the development of seaweed as a material for making. Our approach connected making, practice-based research and generative material development with participatory methods and speculation — exploring perspectives from critical, speculative and transition design — and enabling multiple, interlinked forms of participation through dialogue, speculation, making and reflection, both on design practice and the museum. The museum, in the context of this PhD, is understood as a public place of sensemaking and knowledge sharing. As a cultural node, both analogue and digitally networked, it enables the community it is embedded within to access its own past. This thesis proposes that by means of resident and mobile CoP, museums also present ideal places for shared knowing, speculation about and actively shaping preferable futures. I propose using museum residencies as public research and development labs for nonnormative practices, enabling participants to develop a field of visions, identify the inherent potentials of a project and link multiple projects up into an infrastructure by growing a community of practice. Museum residencies can be ideal settings for practice-led research projects that are informed by — and inform— the museum and its community and can link up individual ideas and concepts into communities of practice intent on collaborating to pursue the next steps. The thesis also outlines how ethical, value-based frameworks may govern co-operation — particularly important relating to the use of natural resources such as seaweed. Suggest a system of departments in flux for integrated practices, that can dock on and off existing institutions. This PhD is aimed at practitioners who want to engage with a community in a participatory design process or wish to work with natural materials such as seaweed. It is also aimed at theorists engaged or interested in practice-led design research, participation, generative material innovation, museum residencies, reflexive practice in immersive environments and critical- and transition design.

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Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2005. / Härtill 5 uppsatser + 4 appendix.

Designers, engineers, marketers, politicians, and scientists all craft motivating visions of better futures. In some of these, “better” will be delivered by science and technology; in others, the consumption of designed things will better us or the world. “Better” has become a contemporary version of progress, shed of some of its philosophical baggage. But better is not a universal good or a verified measure: it is imbued with politics and values. And better will not be delivered equally, if at all. “What is better?”, “Whose better?”, and “Who decides?” are questions with great implications for the way we live and hope to live. At a time when social, economic, and environmental conditions place in question the dominant paradigms of better defined by globalisation and technology, Better, a PhD by project, investigates some of the powerful dreams triggered by a banal word and develops critical design techniques to find new ways to ask better questions. This thesis contends that the “dream of better” is so influential in advanced technological societies that it is what science and technology studies scholars term a sociotechnical imaginary. The imaginary is used as a critical design tool to examine better, revealing links between design and the emerging technoscience of synthetic biology and other ideological spaces, like Silicon Valley. As a young field, synthetic biology offers a space to test and expand critical design’s potential. The practical research includes six critical design projects that engage with synthetic biology and its vision-making processes, using techniques from designed fictions to curation. The written thesis comprises six chapters informed throughout by commentary on the practice. The first chapter looks at the influence of dominant concepts of better on design, separating design’s intrinsic optimism from engineering and market-led ideas of the optimum and optimisation. It situates critical design practice as an optimistic activity, seeking alternative meanings of better. The next three chapters track how the imaginary of better has shaped synthetic biology and the field’s evolving culture of design. Meanings of better have proliferated since 1999, as synthetic biology’s visionaries promise to better biology, better the world, and even to better nature itself. But resistance has revealed the existence of alternative betters. Chapter Five explores critical design’s examination of synthetic biology’s dreams of betters. Recognising the mutual colonisation of critical design and synthetic biology, which is contributing to the emerging platform of biodesign, the chapter discusses how navigating imaginaries can improve future critical practice. It encourages framing technoscience within society, rather than placing society downstream of it. Chapter Six proposes that the social imaginary itself can be a critical design object. Designing “critical imaginaries” can open up our understanding of better, offering a process to reimagine the world. The critical imaginary is not a utopian effort to produce prescriptive visions of how the world ought to be. It is a heterotopian design technique to include diverse views and generate worlds that could be made, asking “what ought the world to be?”