It is inevitable that as a person ages they will encounter different physical and cognitive impairments as well as dynamic social issues. We started this project under the assumption that autonomous driving would greatly benefit the fastest growing population in developed countries, the elderly. However, the larger question at hand was how are older drivers going to interact with future automated driving systems? It was through the qualitative research we conducted that we were able to uncover the answer to this question; older drivers are not willing to give up “control” to autonomous cars. As interaction designers, we need to define what type of interactions need to occur in these future automated driving systems, so older drivers still feel independent and in control when driving. Lawrence D. Burns, former Vice president of Research and Development at General Motors and author of Reinventing the Automobile Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century talks about two driving factors that will shape the future of the automobile. These factors are energy and connectivity (Burns et al., 2010). We would add a third one, which is control. If we address these three factors we might be able to bridge the gap between how we drive today and how we will drive in the future and thus create more cohesive future automated driving systems.

Numerous works have been produced on the topic of Design for Manufacturing (DFM) to better educate the designers of products as to various methods of manufacturing and their specific requirements. It is the common aim of these works to eliminate so called "over the wall" product development in which procedurally ignorant designers pass largely un-producible design concepts to manufacturers, who are then required to make necessary refinements and changes. When applied correctly, DFM results in the efficient and economical production of well-designed products, whose forms have been attuned to the particular requirements of their final method of production at an early stage of development. However, one aspect of using such approaches is that design intent is frequently compromised for the sake of manufacturability and innovative design concepts are often dismissed as being unfeasible. Recent advances in additive manufacturing technologies and their use in the direct manufacture of end-use products from digital data sources has brought about a new method of production that is known as Rapid Manufacturing (RM). Unlike conventional subtractive machining processes, such as milling and turning which generate forms by removing material from a stock billet, RM parts are grown from an empty part bed using the controlled addition of specialised build materials. Additive manufacturing requires no forming tools, is unrestricted by many conventional process considerations and is capable of producing practically any geometry. The freedoms that are associated with this technology facilitate the design and realisation of product concepts that would be unachievable with any other method of production. This promotes an almost boundless design philosophy in which innovative product solutions can be designed to best meet the needs of specification criteria, rather than the production process with which they are to be made. However, unlike other forms of manufacturing, the newness of this technology means that there is no proven aid or tool to assist industrial designers in exploiting the freedoms that it offers. Using information that was collated in the literature review and case study projects, a systematic design approach was proposed and then tested in a series of user trials with groups of industrial design students and practicing industrial design professionals. The results of these trials are discussed, showing a common acknowledgement from both groups that the proposed DFRM tool was of assistance and that it had an influence upon their design work. However, whilst the student group were generally receptive toward tool uptake, the experienced designers showed more of a reluctance to abandon their own "tried and tested" methods in favour of the unknown and unproven approach. It is concluded that this attitude would be fairly representative of wider opinion and that the future uptake of any such tool would be reliant upon sufficient evidence of its successful application. Hence, suggestions are made for future work to continue tool development and for more validation trials to be conducted with its intended user group.

With the emergence of flexible display technologies, graphical user interfaces will no longer be limited to flat surfaces. As such, it will become necessary for interface designers to move beyond flat display designs, contextualizing interaction in an object’s physical shape. Grounded in early explorations of Organic User Interfaces (OUIs), this thesis examines the evolving relationship between industrial and interaction design and argues that not only what, but how we design is changing. To understand how to better design OUIs, we report on an empirical study of pointing behavior that shows how Fitts’ law can model movement time on an extremely convex surface. We also show that touch sensing technology can be repurposed for the OUI design process by making it possible to tape, draw, or paint touch sensing directly on a physical prototype. We then discuss how supporting sketching, a fundamental activity of many design fields, is increasingly critical for the interactive three-dimensional forms in OUI and that a ‘hypercontextualized’ approach to their design can reduce the drawbacks met when everyday objects become interactive. Finally, we discuss that when interactive hardware is seamlessly melded into an object’s shape, the ‘computer’ disappears. When designing OUIs, it is better seen as a basic material, like the clay, foam core, or plastics used by an industrial designer, and one that happens to have interactive potential. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-23 12:00:08.953

This thesis focuses on the material selection process in industrial design activity and existing material selection sources particularly used by industrial designers. Therefore, in this study, the knowledge about materials the designers need, and materials selection sources and the methods they use are explored. The aim is, to propose guidelines for a materials selection source basing on the designers&rsquo / needs and expectations from such a guide. The thesis consists of a critical review of the literature on existing materials sources and a field study conducted with 20 industrial designers practicing in Turkey.

Both, market forces and public systems are unable to provide remote rural communities of developing countries with contextually relevant and appropriate technologies. This is because the number of people and their incomes are too low, to constitute either a market or a political constituency. Consequently, development aid and development projects emerge as the primary means of introducing new technologies to these regions. However developmentalism is heavily inscribed with economic determinism resulting in the conception of technologies that are focused at the level of the nation state and whose primary objective is to increase its productive and consumptive capacity in an attempt to jumpstart economic growth. This results in mass technologies that are inherently violent, ecologically damaging and which restrict individual freedoms. Furthermore, these technologies end up replacing rather than building upon the only resource in which the poor are rich; traditional knowledge and the ability to innovate and contextualize technologies to their own local worlds. How can we disembed the conception of technologies from development aid and build upon the resources of the poor instead of seeking to replace them? How can we create a knowledge network that assists in taking the technological innovations of the poor from concept to market and which protects intellectual property rights and allows follow-on innovation. The emergence of networked computing accompanied by new paradigms of production such as peer to peer and open source along with a rethinking of the ‘commons’ which not only reduces development costs but also geographic barriers to collaboration presents us with a unique opportunity to satisfy these conditions. This thesis will therefore explore the feasibility of engaging with Open Source methodologies for facilitating user led technology innovations in developing countries. This includes the many operational and disciplinary challenges that must be addressed before seeking to contextualize Open Source methodologies for the Industrial Design process. It will investigate the intrinsic character of computer software and its development process for insights that can help determine if the open source methodology can be extended to Industrial Designers and the Industrial Design discipline. If yes, what forms of contextualization would be required? Finally, this study will conclude by outlining guidelines and an architecture for the conception of an Open source Community that facilitates user led technology development. / Master of Engineering (Hons.)

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 23).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1995. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1995. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf [50]).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [247]-255).