170 research outputs found
Rhetoric and design
The relationship between rhetoric and design has been the subject of numerous scholarly publications
in the last fifty years, but has not been addressed by scholars of engineering design. This paper argues
that the relationship is important for theory and practice of design in all its varieties, principally by
providing evidence from the literature that rhetoric and design share key characteristics. Both
- are broadly applicable across subject matters
- concern the particular and the probable
- require invention and judgment, and
- involve arrangement in space and time
From ancient times through the Renaissance, rhetoric was a key element in education, and its methods
were widely adapted to other arts, including design. Rhetoric's loss of status in modern times is
explained, and its resurgence in the latter part of the 20th century is described through the works of
three scholars that focus on the relationship between rhetoric and design. The conceptualization of
these scholars is best represented in the view that rhetoric is design limited to words and design is
rhetoric with an unlimited palette
Design thinking support: information systems versus reasoning
Numerous attempts have been made to conceive and implement appropriate information systems to support architectural designers in their creative design thinking processes. These information systems aim at providing support in very diverse ways: enabling designers to make diverse kinds of visual representations of a design, enabling them to make complex calculations and simulations which take into account numerous relevant parameters in the design context, providing them with loads of information and knowledge from all over the world, and so forth. Notwithstanding the continued efforts to develop these information systems, they still fail to provide essential support in the core creative activities of architectural designers. In order to understand why an appropriately effective support from information systems is so hard to realize, we started to look into the nature of design thinking and on how reasoning processes are at play in this design thinking. This investigation suggests that creative designing rests on a cyclic combination of abductive, deductive and inductive reasoning processes. Because traditional information systems typically target only one of these reasoning processes at a time, this could explain the limited applicability and usefulness of these systems. As research in information technology is increasingly targeting the combination of these reasoning modes, improvements may be within reach for design thinking support by information systems
Cause for alarm?: A multi-national, multi-institutional study of student-generated software designs
This paper reports a multi-national, multi-institutional study to investigate Computer Science students' understanding of software design and software design criteria. Students were recruited at two levels: those termed 'first competency' programmers, and those completing their Bachelor degrees. The study, including participants from 21 institutions over the academic year 2003/4, aimed to examine students' ability to generate software designs, to elicit students' understanding and valuation of key design activities, and to examine whether students at different stages in their undergraduate education display different understanding of software design. Differences were found in participants' recognition of ambiguity in requirements; in their use of formal (and semi-formal) design representation and in their prioritisation of design criteria
Discursive design thinking: the role of explicit knowledge in creative architectural design reasoning
The main hypothesis investigated in this paper is based upon the suggestion that the discursive reasoning in architecture supported by an explicit knowledge of spatial configurations can enhance both design productivity and the intelligibility of design solutions. The study consists of an examination of an architectâs performance while solving intuitively a well-defined problem followed by an analysis of the spatial structure of their design solutions. One group of architects will attempt to solve the design problem logically, rationalizing their design decisions by implementing their explicit knowledge of spatial configurations. The other group will use an implicit form of such knowledge arising from their architectural education to reason about their design acts. An integrated model of protocol analysis combining linkography and macroscopic coding is used to analyze the design processes. The resulting design outcomes will be evaluated quantitatively in terms of their spatial configurations. The analysis appears to show that an explicit knowledge of the rules of spatial configurations, as possessed by the first group of architects can partially enhance their function-driven judgment producing permeable and well-structured spaces. These findings are particularly significant as they imply that an explicit rather than an implicit knowledge of the fundamental rules that make a layout possible can lead to a considerable improvement in both the design process and product. This suggests that by externalizing th
Design: One, but in different forms
This overview paper defends an augmented cognitively oriented generic-design
hypothesis: there are both significant similarities between the design
activities implemented in different situations and crucial differences between
these and other cognitive activities; yet, characteristics of a design
situation (related to the design process, the designers, and the artefact)
introduce specificities in the corresponding cognitive activities and
structures that are used, and in the resulting designs. We thus augment the
classical generic-design hypothesis with that of different forms of designing.
We review the data available in the cognitive design research literature and
propose a series of candidates underlying such forms of design, outlining a
number of directions requiring further elaboration
Design and technology: what is the problem?
This paper examines designing from a cognitive perspective. A long-standing model that
attempts to explain how people solve problems is examined. Also examined is recent work
suggesting design problems have a number of features that distinguish then from other kinds
of problems. A revised model and theory are presented and discussed. The revised model
accounts for the characteristics of design problems in that it acknowledges that design
problems have an ill-defined starting point, there are many ways to solve them and there are,
in theory at least, an infinite number of solutions for each design problem. The implications
of this work for current understanding of problem-solving and designing are discussed, as are
the implications for teaching and learning in design and technology classes
Designing as Construction of Representations: A Dynamic Viewpoint in Cognitive Design Research
This article presents a cognitively oriented viewpoint on design. It focuses
on cognitive, dynamic aspects of real design, i.e., the actual cognitive
activity implemented by designers during their work on professional design
projects. Rather than conceiving de-signing as problem solving - Simon's
symbolic information processing (SIP) approach - or as a reflective practice or
some other form of situated activity - the situativity (SIT) approach - we
consider that, from a cognitive viewpoint, designing is most appropriately
characterised as a construction of representations. After a critical discussion
of the SIP and SIT approaches to design, we present our view-point. This
presentation concerns the evolving nature of representations regarding levels
of abstraction and degrees of precision, the function of external
representations, and specific qualities of representation in collective design.
Designing is described at three levels: the organisation of the activity, its
strategies, and its design-representation construction activities (different
ways to generate, trans-form, and evaluate representations). Even if we adopt a
"generic design" stance, we claim that design can take different forms
depending on the nature of the artefact, and we propose some candidates for
dimensions that allow a distinction to be made between these forms of design.
We discuss the potential specificity of HCI design, and the lack of cognitive
design research occupied with the quality of design. We close our discussion of
representational structures and activities by an outline of some directions
regarding their functional linkages
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