Denna studie har undersökt om barn uppfattar information i ett brädspel baserat på designheuristiker. Designheuristikerna har arbetats fram med inspiration och stöd från teorier hämtade från Koivisto och Korhonen (2014) och Federoff (2002).Brädspelet spelades sedan av deltagare i åldrarna sju och åtta. Mängden av information som uppfattats undersöktes genom att analysera deltagarnas verbala svar och kroppsspråk på intervjufrågor som ställdes under spelomgången. Jean Piagets Utvecklingsteori (Wadsworth 2003) användes för att avgöra vilka kognitiva förmågor som kunde ligga till grund för deltagarnas beteende under undersökningen.Resultatet indikerade att deltagarna uppfattade en övervägande mängd information från designheuristikerna. Detta gäller alla designheuristiker förutom en, som på grund av problem med validiteten av insamlad data inte har ett pålitligt resultat. Ett framtida arbete skulle kunna fokuseras på vilken del i spelutvecklingen som kan utvecklas och förbättras istället för vilken del av artefakten som barnen uppfattar.

The ability to design is the distinguishing characteristic of an engineer. Recent research has increased our understanding of both the engineering design process and effective means for teaching that process to neophyte design engineers. In that spirit, a design methodology was developed at the Institute for Innovation and Design in Engineering (IIDE), Texas A&M University. At the core of this approach is a design philosophy based on the cognitive skills of Abstraction, Critical Parameter Identification, and Questioning. This philosophy along with the design process is taught in the senior undergraduate design and graduate design courses. The goal of the methodology is not only to teach the design process to novice designers but also to instill in them the design philosophy that would enable them to perform design effectively and innovatively in any area of specialty. In this dissertation the design philosophy along with its role in the design methodology is explained. The Need Analysis and the Conceptual Design stages of the IIDE methodology are elaborated. The weaknesses in these stages are identified and addressed, by developing and incorporating design methods and techniques that fit the spirit and framework of the IIDE design methodology. The Object Function Method was developed to address certain aspects at the Need Analysis stage. There was need for an effective concept searching method within the Concept Design stage of the IIDE design methodology. This is addressed by the development of new search techniques and methods for effective concept discovery during concept searching. The usage and application of these methods and techniques is explained in detail along with examples. Additionally, this dissertation contains the results of a study conducted with two groups of senior design students, those who have been through the process and those who have not, to evaluate the effectiveness of applying the IIDE design philosophy and performing the Need Analysis and Conceptual Design stages for the given design challenge. The goal of the study was to investigate the relationship, if any, between the degree to which these aspects of the design methodology were followed and the quality of the resulting design solutions produced.

Engineers recognize the need for innovation in product design, and many methods are available for creating more innovative products and better satisfying customer needs. Empathic Experience Design (EED) is one such method. The EED method exposes the designer to empathic experiences, which are intended to help the designer empathize with customers who use the product under a variety of non-ideal conditions and then transfer that enhanced understanding to an ensuing concept generation activity. This thesis studies the effectiveness of the EED methodology when used in conjunction with three types of empathic experiences: sensory, physical, and cognitive. Experiments were conducted over the course of two years, in which students were asked to develop concepts for a next-generation alarm clock or litter collection device; the resulting concepts were analyzed to determine the originality and technical quality of each concept. The subject group concepts, which were developed after participating in empathic experiences, were compared with the control group concepts, which were developed without empathic experiences. The subject group concepts demonstrated significantly higher originality than the control group concepts, without measurable sacrifices in technical quality, as well as significant increases in innovative features related to user interactions. The method has been shown to be effective for enhancing innovation when the empathic experiences are aimed at sensory and kinematic priming activities that challenge a user’s sensory or physical capabilities. / text

This is a compilation of selected set and costume designs from my past three years as a MFA candidate in theatrical design at the University of Texas at Austin. I hope this portfolio will help launch my career as a theatrical designer. My primary focus is set design and my secondary interest is costume design. This portfolio represents my best work as a costume and set designer. Each design will include a number of images that range from production photographs to preliminary sketches. / text

Private family garden + phenomenology + deconstructivism; alias landscape design cooking a la Czech is a thesis project the main purpose of which was to answer authors questions concerning the practical use of the two design approaches applied to project for a real site through a development of designs driven by the principles of the respective styles/movements. Emphasis were paid to the influence the movements have on architectural and garden design. Second aim was to investigate the appropriateness and usefulness of designing through a model creation in a miniaturised simulation of the real situation in three dimensions. Following, and the last step, was to investigate the effectiveness of the model to communicate and truthfully represent/simulate the impact of the proposed design interventions. Throughout the work on the project, stages and consecutive steps taken were recorded to document the process. Development of the project was divided into several phases. First, suitable site was chosen and data related to the property gathered. Second, phenomenology and deconstructivism had been studied - mainly through looking at precedent design work and development of visual annotated analysis. Third step, happening simultaneously with second, was creation of a model simulating the current state and conditions on the site. Fourth, preliminary design proposals were developed. As a reflection on step four, design guidelines were developed (step five) to provide more steady ground/base for development of a coherent and better focused final design, which was the product of step six. In the seventh step, a rough model of the final design was developed and had been gradually refined into a stage of a final model with minor changes to the design elements occurring throughout the process. The changes were executed as they became desirable after the three dimensional simulation of the proposed design was developed and a higher level of understanding of the spatial relations was achieved. In conclusion, a high effectiveness of the model "to tell the story" was observed and emphasized even further by digital photo-documentation targeted to "draw the viewer into the model space." Lessons about time demands for the model creation were learned and better level of understanding the way deconstructivism and phenomenology reflect in design work was achieved.

This thesis sets out a theoretical premise for design research into the space of the designer, working inside the design system or context. The designer is understood as actor, as active agency looking inwards in a comprehensive way to examine where ideas are located and then, how these new insights or perspective might be meaningfully introduced. In order to develop this research, personal journal writing is employed as to develop an understanding about how the designer/actor can actively engage with being at once participant, and observer, of their own design practice. A series of design case studies are carried out, where the role of the designer as actor is critically examined through forms of personal journal writing. What this entails is the establishment of a form of autopoetic system for writing in several voices of the self, and self-as-other working in, and through as design project case studies. I critically evaluate these journal case studies to inform my understanding about the design of dialogic visual communication, where multiple perspectives of self, and self-as-other may be interwoven into the visual design artifact. As a result of conducting this research, I propose the existence of what I term the 'conversational self' as a means for developing new knowledge and knowing through conversational story-telling as design research. My research introduces the 'conversational self' as a generalisable theory for design research which addresses the ways in which the designer might effectively engage with the workings of personal tools and patterns of practice, thus building greater objectivity through recognition of local contexts, and the role of the designer as actor and as a situated self within the design process. My research findings describe a space for the 'conversational self' as the coming together of three linked knowledge systems for creation and learning. I describe this theory as 'agency-centred' design for research about design and experiential knowledge contexts through research into the development of project case studies where individual styles and approaches to learning and thinking which are recognised and valued as implicit tools of and for design practice. Firstly, the conversational journal writing format which I develop situates the designer/ researcher as both participant and observer within their design decision-making. As a result of the uses of the journal format as a practice-based research methodology through case studies, I observe the effect of producing what I term an 'autopoetic' (Maturana and Varela) self-producing system, which enables me to introduce both rational and intuitive content that works in my journal through a range of thinking styles and journal forms. My research strategy involves the writing of several concurrent and interacting levels of internal conversation across 'I', 'You', 'Me' and 'We' as parallel and interactive experiential voices of self through uses of a journal format where a range of experiences are documented as design project narratives. The conversational contexts which this approach offers provide a means for introducing multiple perspectives from self, and selfas- other (as designer, author, subject, agent, person) to explore topics and social knowledge themes through a range of creative conversational learning contexts (Pask, Glanville). In the course of developing this approach I draw on theories about personal constructs (Kelly, Thomas and Harri-Augustein); the self as forms as agency (Archer); about experiential learning and knowledge creation through learning conversations (Baker, Jensen and Kolb) ; and social knowledge as networks, flows and exchange processes (Boisot). Secondly, as a finding from my usage of this journal format, I propose the workings of what I describe as my 'unity of self' system construct as an enabling and generative system for working with social knowledge and the 'self' as forms of agency through internal conversations. Margaret Archer's theory describes the social self as forms of causal agency active in everyday social and experiential contexts. In my case studies I trace the internal dynamics and interactions of 'voices' of self in the journal text, which I evaluate as the workings of conversational levels and layers which engage with a range of details and perspectives for each project using written and non-verbal forms. The design case study projects each describes a particular context for design practice; including institutional, corporate, experimental, and personal design projects. In using this methodology for journal writing, I show how I am able to explore the social interplays of personal/public and individual/collective frameworks for design practice contexts. Thirdly, through my evaluations of the design project case study journals, I observe the emergence of topics and themes in each project around my understanding of the role of context for defining the social and experiential 'materials' (Schon) of the situation. The topics noted from conversations in design case inform what I term my 'contextual field' as the third learning system in my findings from this research. This 'contextual field' is a kind of topical map which provides signposts for working with social and experiential contexts, to design 'ecological narratives' (Krippendorff) as forms of language which are crafted as intentional and strategic design approaches, as responses to the research process of internal reflection about the materials of the situation (Schon) Through usage with my journal format, and unity of self construct, my contextual field topical map provides a framework for developing topics and themes for internal conversations to inform my design production in both 'service' and 'hand' craft project contexts. What results are rich use case studies documented as forms of conversational story-telling where new knowledge emerges as questions and possibilities around the design of visual artifacts and service contexts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-232). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1983. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-61).

Rapporten redogör för hur jag animerade en kortfilm med tema fobier. Den innehåller bakgrund, inspiration och med och motgångar hur det är att animera i 2d för första gången.

Expressive input is the culmination of 18 weeks of prototyping, ideation and research conducted as my degree project at Umeå Institute of Design. The project presents three design provocations which aim to raise questions about the potential opportunity to create a dialogue with the physical controls we interact with.  While words like “smart” or “connected” get thrown around quite often, this work aims to show that there is a role for expression within the relationship we have with our devices.  Expression within this context is defined as how we can make user interfaces that leverage the advances in sensors and feedback in order to feel more human.  The work presents three scenarios that might exist within an Automotive context, and demonstrates solutions that encourage users to maintain visual attention on the task of driving.  The project was conducted by running a series of short sprints that were focused on specific problems, the intention of this approach was to identify unique opportunities for future design work to explore.