Integrated Scenario-based Design Methodology for Collaborative Technology Innovation

The paper presents a scenario-based methodology developed and tested throughout cooperative research and development projects. It is aimed at supporting information technology innovation with an end-to-end Human and Social Sciences assistance. This methodology provides an integrated approach combining a vision of the potential users, business aspects and technological challenges throughout the design process. An original combination of different methods is proposed and experimented: user-centred design, scenario-based design, user and functional requirements analysis, business value analysis, user acceptance studies, and visualization methods. This methodology has been implemented in three European R&D projects, in the domain of the telecommunications and Internet infrastructure. The key contributions of this approach are that it unifies brings together visions of the users, potential business value and technology challenges thanks to scenario construction.Scenario-based design ; user requirements ; business economics ; functional requirements ; visualization

Scenario-based design and evaluation for capability

Scenarios are frequently used within techniques for planning and designing systems. They are an especially helpful means of visualizing and understanding the incorporation of new systems within systems of systems. If used as the basis for decisions about candidate designs, then it is important that such decisions can be rationalized and quantitative assessment is particularly important. In this paper, an approach for developing complex scenarios, which incorporates the phases of systems development and deployment, is presented and a quantitative method of comparison is described. This approach is based on the development of measures of merit and measures of performance. The techniques are illustrated using cases that are relevant to Network Enabled Capability

Marine propeller optimisation tools for scenario-based design

The marine propulsion system is one of the most important components of a ship in order to cover the demanding operating needs of propulsion nowadays and to increase performance in a wide range of operating conditions. Marine propellers are designed with the purpose of matching the hull and machinery system, create the required thrust for the entire operational profile, and fulfil the techno-economical requirements that depend on the decision-making of several stakeholders. The final product must represent a unique propeller, designed for a specific vessel, and is a trade-off between all requirements. In an industrial framework, the marine propeller design process should therefore be straightforward and well-developed. The limited time under which the design process must be performed, plays a decisive role in the methods utilised to carry it out, as for example in the selection of the analysis tools, which must be fast and they usually involve semi-empirical evaluations. Since blade design is a multi-objective and multidisciplinary problem, automated optimisation has been used with the aim to search good solutions in the design space efficiently. However, automated optimisation has failed to be used in industrial applications due to obtaining solutions with high performance but with infeasible geometries, and as a method it proved to be inferior to the manual design process, something that shows the importance of the designer\u27s expertise. The main research question of this thesis is therefore related to incorporating optimisation in a systematic way in order to improve the propeller design process and assist the blade designers to obtain feasible and high-performing propellers in strict time constraints. A methodology is proposed that combines interactive optimisation with machine learning and in parallel new objectives are implemented for more complex scenarios. The designer is enabled to manually evaluate cavitation nuisance during the optimisation and guide the algorithm towards areas of the design space with satisfactory cavitation characteristics. Several scenario-based situations have been investigated by using the proposed methodology, that involve different propeller types, design and off-design conditions, several objectives and constraints, cavitation nuisance on the suction and the pressure side of the blade, and applications within conventional and wind propulsion. The results have shown that by involving the blade designer\u27s expertise in the design and optimisation process systematically, competitive propeller designs with feasible geometries can be obtained efficiently

Computational support for early stage architectural design

The concepts underlying 'scenario-based' design are introduced. From the analysis of a number of struc-tured interviews with practicing designers, key design scenarios are identified. These scenarios are then generalised and outline guidelines developed for structuring early stage design

Roadmap for Real World Internet applications

This paper emphasises the socioeconomic background required to design the Future Internet in order that its services will be accepted by its users and that the economic value latent in the technology is realised. It contains an innovative outlook on sensing aspects of the Future Internet and describes a scenario-based design approach that is feasible to roadmap the dynamic deployment of Real World Internet applications. A multifaceted socioeconomic assessment leads to recommendations for the technology deployment and key features of the Future Internet that will globally integrate technologies like Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks and Networked Embedded Devices.Real World Internet ; Future Internet ; Scenario-based Design ; Socioeconomics ; Business Models ; Requirements

Bridging the gap: scenario-based design as a solution for delayed access to users

Scenario-based design (Carroll & Rosson, 2002) is a Human-Computer Interaction methodology for considering the needs of potential users, without their direct input. Scenario-based design gives the interface designer the ability to create scenarios of use, along with postulations on the various types of users, expressed in the form of personas (Grudin & Pruitt, 2002). These scenarios and personas can be useful in the context of a design project, where real world issues preclude the direct involvement of users at a critical stage. By ‘walking through’ informal narrative descriptions in the form of a story, scenario-based design focuses on human activity rather than technology. We propose that scenario-based design can be utilised to fill gaps in a collaborative project, where, due to circumstances beyond the control of the designer, other parties have not provided vital information before the prototyping stage. Scenario-based design can allow us, as designers, to consider the needs of our potential users when circumstances mean that we would not otherwise be able to. While different disciplines utilise proprietary project management methods, scenario-based design bridges gaps between practice-specific epistemologies, allowing contributions from different fields to feed the project at any stage of its progress. This paper details our early reflections as designers working on an ARC Linking Grant-funded, interdisciplinary project to redesign a bushfire warning website. We explain that scenario-based design can act as a catalyst, to ‘kick-start’ a project where, due to various factors, timing or resources means that direct contact with users is not always possible