Ideation as an intellectual information acquisition and use context: Investigating game designers’ information-based ideation behavior

Human Information Behavior (HIB) research commonly examines behavior in the context of why information is acquired and how it will be used, but usually at the level of the work or everyday-life tasks the information will support. HIB has not been examined in detail at the broader contextual level of intellectual purpose (i.e. the higher-order conceptual tasks the information was acquired to support). Examination at this level can enhance holistic understanding of HIB as a ‘means to an intellectual end’ and inform the design of digital information environments that support information interaction for specific intellectual purposes. We investigate information-based ideation (IBI) as a specific intellectual information acquisition and use context by conducting Critical Incident-style interviews with ten game designers, focusing on how they interact with information to generate and develop creative design ideas. Our findings give rise to a framework of their ideation-focused HIB, which systems designers can leverage to reason about how best to support certain behaviors to drive design ideation. These findings emphasize the importance of intellectual purpose as a driver for acquisition and desired outcome of use

Goal sketching: towards agile requirements engineering

This paper describes a technique that can be used as part of a simple and practical agile method for requirements engineering. The technique can be used together with Agile Programming to develop software in internet time. We illustrate the technique and introduce lazy refinement, responsibility composition and context sketching. Goal sketching has been used in a number of real-world development projects, one of which is described here

You can't always sketch what you want: Understanding Sensemaking in Visual Query Systems

Visual query systems (VQSs) empower users to interactively search for line charts with desired visual patterns, typically specified using intuitive sketch-based interfaces. Despite decades of past work on VQSs, these efforts have not translated to adoption in practice, possibly because VQSs are largely evaluated in unrealistic lab-based settings. To remedy this gap in adoption, we collaborated with experts from three diverse domains---astronomy, genetics, and material science---via a year-long user-centered design process to develop a VQS that supports their workflow and analytical needs, and evaluate how VQSs can be used in practice. Our study results reveal that ad-hoc sketch-only querying is not as commonly used as prior work suggests, since analysts are often unable to precisely express their patterns of interest. In addition, we characterize three essential sensemaking processes supported by our enhanced VQS. We discover that participants employ all three processes, but in different proportions, depending on the analytical needs in each domain. Our findings suggest that all three sensemaking processes must be integrated in order to make future VQSs useful for a wide range of analytical inquiries.Comment: Accepted for presentation at IEEE VAST 2019, to be held October 20-25 in Vancouver, Canada. Paper will also be published in a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) IEEE VIS (InfoVis/VAST/SciVis) 2019 ACM 2012 CCS - Human-centered computing, Visualization, Visualization design and evaluation method

Sources of Ideas for Innovation in Engineering Design

This paper explores the sources of ideas for innovation in engineering design. The paper shows that engineering designers involved in complex, non-routine design processes rely heavily on face-to-face conversations with other designers for solving problems and developing new innovative ideas. The research is based on a case study and survey of designers from Ove Arup & Partners, a leading international engineering consultancy. We examine the role of different mechanisms for learning about new designs, the motivations of designers, problem solving and limits to designers' ability to innovative. We explore how the project-based nature of the construction sector shapes the ways in which designers develop new ideas and solve problems. We suggest that among the population of designers in Arup, there are a number of different design strategies for innovating and that these can have important implications for how design is managed. We locate our approach in the research on innovation in project-based firms, outlining patterns of innovation in firms that survive on the basis of their success in winning and managing projects.engineering design, innovation, tacit knowledge, project-based firms

Design synthesis and shape generation

If we are to capitalise on the potential that a design approach might bring to innovation in business and society, we need to build a better understanding of the evolving skill-sets that designers will need and the contexts within which design might operate. This demands more discourse between those involved in cutting edge practice, the researchers who help to uncover principles, codify knowledge and create theories and the educators who are nurturing future design talent. This book promotes such a discourse by reporting on the work of twenty research teams who explored different facets of future design activity as part of Phase 2 of the UK's research council supported Designing for the 21st Century Research Initiative. Each of these contributions describes the origins of the project, the research team and their project aims, the research methods used and the new knowledge and understanding generated. Editor and Initiative Director, Professor Tom Inns, provides an introductory chapter that suggests ways the reader might navigate these viewpoints. This chapter concludes with an overview of the key lessons that might be learnt from this collection of design research activity

Using Computer Technology Tools to Improve the Teaching-Learning Process in Technical and Vocational Education: Mechanical Engineering Subject Area

This paper discusses the integration of computer assisted instructions (CAI) with traditional class room teaching. It describes a teaching method to bring real-world of industrial work into the classroom that underscores the need to learn fundamental principles while adding excitement and relevance to the experience. This paper presents results of a case study undertaken to understand the effect of computer assisted teaching methodology on learning effectiveness in classroom environment. The effects of computer assisted instructions on different levels of cognition of individual learners have also been evaluated. The computer aided drawing (CAD), computer aided manufacturing (CAM) and computer numerical control (CNC) courses at the Bahrain institute are an integral part of this attempt. These courses emphasize the development of a 3-D geometric computer model and application of this digital database to all phases of the design process. The students make freehand sketches, build computer models, mate assemblies of parts, perform various analysis, create kinematics simulations, generate final design drawings, import engineering drawing as DXF file, generate NC file to build rapid prototypes as shown in the table 1 below. Keywords: Computer Technology, C.N.C and AutoCad Softwar

Diffusion of Worth Mapping: The worth of resource functions

This workshop paper uses a resource function vocabulary from the Working to Choose framework to analyse diffusion of the Worth Maps approach across several application domains. It explores how a resource function vocabulary can indicate aspects of design approaches and their use that favour successful diffusion