Reflection in design practice-quality assurance of practical training in product design education

Students’ experiences through practical training can be used for curriculum development based on interactive research between education and work practice. To work collaboratively and reflect during the design process is a general competence that is central in a product development team. Studies have shown that such communication can support personal and collective learning processes so that organizations were able to develop in line with the growing need for creativity and innovation. This study relies on students’ reflection notes from practical training as an empirical basis to develop the curriculum of a master study in product design. The methodical approach was archival analysis of reflection notes written by the students during their practical training. The course responsible used this as a follow up to assure students’ learning outcomes. The findings exemplify how complex issues in practical training were categorized in relation to the design education institutions need for quality assurance. Practice places were varied like furniture industry, sports industry, fair trade industry and cultural institutions. The findings were evaluated and discussed in relation to quality criteria in higher education and to knowledge, skills and general competence in reflective practice. The students’ had developed their communication skills in business practice. The conclusion was that the method of archival analysis of student reflections based on quality criteria of higher education can be used as an approach to develop the curriculum in dialogue with a changing and innovative work life

Shared memory in design complexity

This paper discusses the idea of how collaborative learning might help designers with the rapid learning required in the increasingly complex environments they work in. It has been proposed that innovation that drive technological advancement happens through evolutionary variation of the existing knowledge. The relevance of such an approach is that rapid learning is essential for a designer in a technological environment that is increasingly complex. The goal of the systemic design approach that addresses rapid learning is to facilitate mapping of a problem context that can include findings outside the designer’s field of competence. A rapid learning process emphasizes self-directed learning. There is a need for more knowledge on how designers could learn from their collaborators to gain project relevant tacit knowledge. The method chosen to address this was case study of a student project. The case study showed how a group of students was collaborating with an external partner, a bank savings foundation, learning rapidly through mind mapping system program. The conclusion of the study was that memes in a creative design process are connected to learning outcomes related to communication and empathy. The identified cognitive qualities of empathy relevant for the design process were multi-functionality, symbolism and brand recognition. The emotional qualities of empathy that were identified were corporate values that might contribute to corporate social responsibility and social interaction. The compassionate qualities of empathy were mutual benefit and positive consequences in society

Designing burial monuments to increase emotional awareness in product design

The motivation for writing this paper is the growing concern in society towards the amount of products we produce containing low utility and sustainability. Through emotional awareness the student can design meaningful artifacts which extend being more than consumer goods. The hypothesis is that Product Design students designing burial monuments increase their awareness of emotional and meaningful artifacts, and increase their emotional awareness in the design process. Twenty students worked designing burial monuments for a stonemasonry. Their design process was researched trough use of archival studies and participatory observations. The study shows the theme affected the students emotionally, which again influenced their design process. The research indicates that designing burial monuments led to an increased emotional awareness for the majority of students participating in the project

Collaborative innovation: a study of creative teamwork in offshore industry and in design education

Entrepreneurship is identified as a key activity to creating value to society as well as the successful adaption of the products and services to users’ lives. This is why entrepreneurship as concept is finding it’s way to the curriculum in higher education. To study how entrepreneurship is implemented through problem-based learning practice two case studies were conducted. The first case was from professional design practice including observation and cooperation process mapping in an offshore project. The key aspect of this project was commercialization of subsea seismic sensor technology. The second case was an example from product design education course module including observations of teamwork meeting, team member interviews and archival studies. The key aspect of this project was commercialization of a service. The concept of collaborative innovation, strategic entrepreneurship and problem framing was used to analyze and compare these two cases in order to study how entrepreneurship can be taught through problem-based learning and thus to identify relevant learning outcomes for project management in design education. While the first case study demonstrated how a company was establishing collaborative network to exchange expertise, the second case study showed how students were involved in idea and opportunity exploration process

Participatory Design for Well-being

Participatory design can meet the needs of the individuals’ well-being in hospitals; however constraints occur in such a complex context. A case study of exploratory participatory design processes with health professionals were done at a geriatric department in mental health care. An analysis was done to disclose the structures to an analytical tool: Levels of Participation. It visualizes strategies for activation of participants to health promoting environments in hospitals, thus supporting strategies of corporate social responsibility. Design methodology was used to enhance internal consistence. Solutions and consequences were evaluated in relation to external consistence. Four levels of participation were identified and described: Formal recommendations, institutional strategies, professional practices and influence between patients and their personal space. The Levels of Participation-tool can support multiple and alternative processes of participation with health professionals and patients in the aim for products of well-bein

Meaningful objects: complementary research documentation of experiential qualities in art and design

The goal of art and design disciplines is often to produce objects possessing experiential qualities. Both consumers and practitioners in art and design may come across emotions, expressions and experiences in various occasions. However, when these disciplines enter the academic research, which aims to produce knowledge, objects created by the researchers who are also practitioners are rarely included. This paper addresses the meaningfulness of objects as the complementary documentation of research processes by emphasising how experiential qualities occur in the art and design practices of the practitioners-researchers. Two case studies of art objects exemplify the experiential development. While the first case focuses on the experiential qualities evolving in the dialogue between the artist and the material, the second case focuses on those qualities in the artist’s interaction with the target group. Experiential qualities are identified in comparing similarities and differences of phenomena in the two cases. These are related to the subjective approach and to the personal experience. A greater focus on these phenomena can generate methods for experiential knowledge in art and design

Respiration rates of herring larvae at different salinities and effects of previous environmental history

Metabolic rates of early life history stages of marine fishes show considerable inter-individual differences and are highly influenced by extrinsic factors like temperature or food availability. Measuring oxygen uptake rates is a proxy for estimating metabolic rates. Still, the relationship between respiration rates and ambient or previous salinity conditions as well as parental and developmental acclimation to changes in salinity is largely unexplored. In the present study, we conducted experiments to investigate salinity effects on the routine metabolic rates (RMR) of euryhaline Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) larvae at three levels of salinity: low (6 psu), intermediate (16 psu) and high (35 psu) reflecting ecological relevant conditions for its populations in the Atlantic and Baltic Sea. The larvae originated from different genetic backgrounds and salinity adaptations to account for cross-generation effects on metabolic rates. Closed respirometry carried out over 24 h on individual fish larvae generally confirmed near isometric respiration rates at all salinity regimes, with rates being 15.4% higher at 6 psu and 7.5% higher at 35 psu compared to 16 psu conditions. However, transgenerational acclimation to different salinity regimes of parents had no effect on the salinity specific metabolic rates of their offspring. Our study demonstrates the ability of herring to cope with a wide range of salinity conditions, irrespective of parental environmental history and genetic origin. This phenotypic plasticity is considered to be one of the main contributing factors to the success of herring as a widely distributed fish species in the North Atlantic and adjacent waters.acceptedVersio

Participation in hybrid sketching

In the age of digitalisation, the role of the sketch has taken new forms, but it still works as a mediator between people who work to create something together. There is, however, a lack of knowledge about how the sketch can be used as a strategy to increase participation and collaboration in creative processes. Participation in various types of sketching was explored through a case study with a participatory design approach in a public art project for a health centre. The study demonstrated how hybrid materialisations of a sketch have value as a communicative medium. Essential concepts emerged from collaborative learning in fieldwork that created shared understanding based on drawing experiments. The concepts contribute to a typology of hybrid sketches used as creativity skills in the expanded field of art.   Keywords: Collaborative learning, participatory design, artistic research, drawing in the expanded field, management of creative processe

Exploring value dilemmas of brain monitoring technology through speculative design scenarios

In the field of brain monitoring, the advancement of more user-friendly wearable and non-invasive devices is introducing new opportunities for application outside the lab and clinical use. Despite the growing importance of responsible innovation, there remains a knowledge gap in addressing the possible impacts of wearable non-invasive brain monitoring technology on mental health and well-being. Addressing this, our main aim was to study the use of speculative design scenarios as a method to describe potential value dilemmas associated with this new technology. Through a qualitative study, we invited participants to engage in discussions regarding three variations of wearable non-invasive brain monitoring technology presented in speculative video scenarios. The study's findings describe how the discussions contribute towards promoting heuristics that can help foster more responsible innovation by identifying norms and value dilemmas through inclusive speculative design practices. This qualitative case study contributes to the literature on responsible innovation by demonstrating how responsible innovation frameworks can benefit from incorporating anticipatory speculative design methods aimed at early identification of potential value dilemmas.publishedVersio

Complexity in Design-Driven Innovation: A case study of knowledge transfer flow in subsea seismic sensor technology and design education

To the extent previously claimed, concept exploration is not the key to product innovation. However, companies that are design-focused are twice as innovative as those that are not. To study design-driven innovation and its occurrence in design education, two case studies are conducted. The first is an example of design practice which includes observation and cooperation process maps in an offshore project. The second is an example of product design education which includes observations of teamwork, team member interviews and archival studies. While the first case study demonstrates how a company innovates through a design-driven process with complex knowledge transference and systematic planning and improvisation, the second case study shows students managing their design processes through concept generation in a less complex trial and error process. Knowledge exploration as a part of design activity was analyzed through the criteria of network paradoxes. A pedagogic concept has been synthesized and validated internally based on the case study, and externally based on other design practices and design research. The pedagogic concept synthesized was Knowledge Transfer Flow [KTF]. The KTF concept can help to orient design students within the information-saturated design processes integrated within complex innovation systems