Board # 113 : EEGRC Poster: Characterizing Trade-off Decisions in Student Designers

Although design and decision-making are intertwined for practicing engineers, students from elementary school through college and graduate schools are not taught to think through uncertain situations (Howard, 2007) in which information is limited or outcomes are not guaranteed. Trade-offs are a complex element of decision, as the decision-making weighs possible outcomes against their respective costs (Otto &Antonsson, 1991). Although much is understood about how professional designers’ behaviors as compared to novice designers and students (Atmen et al., 2007; Crismond & Adams, 2012; Cross, 2003), there is little research regarding making trade-off decisions from middle school and high school to college. Understanding how students characterize their design tradeoffs would allow educators a better glimpse into students’ system design thinking. Without such knowledge at the K-16 level, we cannot create suitable design activities for students to improve on their decision-making skills, inhibiting their effectiveness as future engineers. In order to characterize trade-off behaviors in student designers, I will study the student design profiles and design artifacts in conjunction with student conceptions of design (i.e. what they do and what they think). In order to review student design profiles I propose using learning analytics (e.g., logs of student design files). Traditional tests and student design reflections will be utilized to better understand student design thinking. Learning analytics, traditional test and reflections will be used to group students based on the patterns they exhibit related to trade-off decisions. My rationale is that identifying these patterns will help K-16 educators (1) understand variations in student trade-off behaviors (2) incorporate appropriate design activities into their curricula. A pilot study with high school students (Purzer, Goldstein, Adams, Xie, & Nourian, 2015; Goldstein et al., 2015) showed that there are variations in how students demonstrate balancing benefits and tradeoffs in making design decisions. A second pilot investigated the connection between student reflection and informed design through quantitative analysis (Goldstein et al., 2015b), laying the groundwork for understanding student design decision-making rationale through reflections. A third pilot study (Goldstein et al., 2015c) demonstrated how micro-level process data (e.g., student clickstream data) can be used to validate outsider observations of student design. I propose one specific aim – to unpack and elaborate on how student designers characterize trade-off decisions in design through the following research questions: Research Question 1: What is the relationship between design artifact trade-off value and profiles of design behaviors that differentiate design students? Research Question 2: What do student reflections tell us about how student characterize their design decisions? What relationship exists between the degree of trade-off in the reflections and final artifact trade-off value? Research Question 3: How do students prioritize making trade-offs as contributing to a quality design solution? What relationship exists between their prioritization and final artifact trade-off value

The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies

The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies brings together eminent and emerging artists and designers to show how creative applications of data technology are crucial for a vital, inclusive and sustainable future. The exhibition includes artworks and designs that engage audiences in critical, playful and agentic reflections on data and creative technologies. Through the exhibition, workshops, podcast and publication, the audience will be empowered to respond to climate change patterns and future city design, interact with empathy from remote locations, learn about Indigenous cultural knowledges and reflect on everyday habits that secure data privacy. Dedicated url: http://thedataimaginary.com

Exploring the Role of Empathy in a Service-Learning Design Project

The emergence of empathic design has inspired growing discourse on the role of empathy within design. While research on empathic design acknowledges the presence of empathy in design practice, little attention has been paid to its underlying mechanisms and how these mechanisms operate within the designer’s mind throughout the design process. In this study, we used the service-learning data set to develop an emergent empathic design model. We collected and analyzed any instances in which designers evidenced empathy for the end users. We kept empathy loosely defined due to the exploratory intent of this study and the recognition that empathy by designers for users may show itself only subtly in designers’ reflections on interactions with users. Through thematic analysis of over 100 critical instances during the 8 service-learning videos, we discovered 4 higher level themes with 12 underlying patterns of empathy in the design process. These themes included (a) developing understanding - design behaviors oriented towards identifying and comprehending the perspectives of potential users, (b) identifying criteria and constraints - employing an empathic understanding of the user to set design goals and parameters, (c) generating design concepts - designers’ empathic understanding of the user inspires new design concepts, and (d) evaluating design concepts - using empathy to determine the appropriateness of specific design concepts for the users. These themes, their underlying patterns, and 5 additional patterns associated with empathy but not considered empathic, were mapped to depict an empathic design model

Sharing the vision:representing the matters of concern for design-led fledgling companies in Scotland

Design is being performed on an ever-increasing spectrum of complex practices arising in response to emerging markets and technologies, co-design, digital interaction, service design and cultures of innovation. This emerging notion of design has led to an expansive array of collaborative and facilitation skills to demonstrate and share how such methods can shape innovation. The meaning of these design things in practice can't be taken for granted as matters of fact, which raises a key challenge for design to represent its role through the contradictory nature of matters of concern. This paper explores an innovative, object-oriented approach within the field of design research, visually combining an actor-network theory framework with situational analysis, to report on the role of design for fledgling companies in Scotland, established and funded through the knowledge exchange hub Design in Action (DiA). Key findings and visual maps are presented from reflective discussions with actors from a selection of the businesses within DiA's portfolio. The suggestion is that any notions of strategic value, of engendering meaningful change, of sharing the vision of design, through design things, should be grounded in the reflexive interpretations of matters of concern that emerge