Frequency Dependent Specific Heat from Thermal Effusion in Spherical Geometry

We present a novel method of measuring the frequency dependent specific heat at the glass transition applied to 5-polyphenyl-4-ether. The method employs thermal waves effusing radially out from the surface of a spherical thermistor that acts as both a heat generator and thermometer. It is a merit of the method compared to planar effusion methods that the influence of the mechanical boundary conditions are analytically known. This implies that it is the longitudinal rather than the isobaric specific heat that is measured. As another merit the thermal conductivity and specific heat can be found independently. The method has highest sensitivity at a frequency where the thermal diffusion length is comparable to the radius of the heat generator. This limits in practise the frequency range to 2-3 decades. An account of the 3omega-technique used including higher order terms in the temperature dependency of the thermistor and in the power generated is furthermore given.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, Substantially revised versio

Dimensions of Creative Evaluation: Distinct Design and Reasoning Strategies for Aesthetic, Functional and Originality Judgments

The datasets provided as part of DTRS-10 all relate to what may broadly be labeled as ‘design critiques’ in an educational context. As such, we chose to center our theoretical analysis on the evaluative reasoning taking place during expert appraisals of the design concepts that were being produced by industrial design students throughout the design process. This overall framing for our research allowed us to pursue a series of research questions concerning the dimensions of creative evaluation in design and their consequences for reasoning strategies and suggestions for moving further in the creative progress. Our transcript coding and analysis focused on three key dimensions of creativity, that is, originality, functionality and aesthetics. Each dimension was associated with a particular underpinning ‘logic’ that determined the distinctive ways in which these dimensions were seen to be evaluated in practice. In particular, our analysis clarified the way in which design dimensions triggered very different reasoning strategies such as running mental simulations, or making suggestions for design improvement, ranging from definitive ‘go/kill’ decisions right through to loose recommendations to continue to work on a concept for a period of time without any further directional steer beyond this general appraisal. Overall, we believe that our findings not only advance a theoretical understanding of evaluation behaviour that arises in design critiques, but also have important practical implications in terms of alerting expert design evaluators to the nature and consequences of their critical appraisals

Images of Users and Products Shown During New Product Design Increase Users’ Willingness-To-Use the Innovation

Two studies tested whether introducing images to designers during the design process lead to more useful design solutions as evaluated by the end-users willingness-to-use the final design. It was hypothesized based on theories in cognitive science and design that there were at least two paths from images to usefulness. One path concerns analogically transferring within-domain properties to the design solution. The other path concerns mentally simulating end-user characteristics and preferences and inclusion of the user in the resulting design. Study 1 supported that random images led to increased outcome usefulness, and supported both hypothesized paths, by using withindomain products and end-user images as input. Study 2 showed that the image categories competed for attention, and that the within-domain product stimuli attracted the most attention and was considered the most inspirational to the designers. The practical use of the technique may lead to only marginally original products perhaps limiting its applicability to incremental innovation

A methodology for studying design cognition in the real world

The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical design cognition methodologies. Whereas typical design cognition methodology use protocol a nalysis (utilizing special ‘think-aloud’ instructions and/or artificial settings) or retrospective analyses, in vivo research attempts to study design thinking and reasoning ‘live’ or ‘online’ as it takes place in the real world. No special instructions are used since the method relies on natural dialogue taking place between designers. By recording verbalizations at product development meetings (or other suitable objects of study), transcribing, and coding the data, it is possible to test hypotheses about design cognition in the real-world. This promises to improve the ecological validity over typical design cognition studies. Problems with the methodology include labor-intensiveness leading to small samples (possible sampling errors). To deal with this problem, it is recommended to supplement in vivo research with traditional larger sample laboratory studies

Empirically analysing design reasoning patterns: Abductive-deductive reasoning patterns dominate design idea generation

Reasoning is a fundamental process in design activity, and it provides a way to understand design behaviour. Theories and models of design propose reasoning that follows abductive-deductive patterns. At the micro-level, these patterns are untested. This study analyses verbal reasoning patterns at the micro-level for group idea generation using protocol analyses of concurrent verbalisations from five design teams with industry participants. The results show that reasoning in design activity across 218 ideas follows general patterns of abductive-deductive reasoning. At the individual idea level, the reasoning patterns are disorderly and enter into micro-patterns of inference. The study concludes that understanding reasoning at early-stage idea generation processes is indicative of the mental models and abductive-deductive reasoning that are prevalent in design activity

Idea Screening in Engineering Design Using Employee-driven Wisdom of the Crowds

The paper investigates the question of screening ideas in the ‘fuzzy front end’ of engineering design, examining the validity of employee voting schemes and related biases. After an employee-driven innovation project at {Company Name removed for review}, 99 ideas were to be screened for further development. Based on the concept of ‘wisdom of the crowds’, all ideas were individually rated by a broad selection of employees, and their choices of ideas and idea categories compared to those of a small team of senior marketers. The study also tested for two biases: visual complexity and endowment effect/ownership of ideas. The study shows that the crowd wisdom of employees significantly correlates with the preferences of the marketing team: overall, in top 12 selected ideas and in choice of idea categories. This match increases when including only the ratings of the most experienced employees. The experienced employees also proved to be less affected by visual complexity in the ideas presented. The endowment effect was potent in that every employee proved to be more likely to select their own ideas over others, but this effect disappeared when aggregating across the crowd of employees

An Integrative Review

It seems to be an established fact in the organizational psychological literature that participation in decision making leads to creativity and innovation in work groups and organizations. A quite extensive amount of research has claimed that the link exists, although only a somewhat smaller amount of research has established that there is a link between the two constructs of participation in decision making and creativity. But although this link has been clearly documented theories with clearly stated causal explanations of why participation in decision making (pdm) would lead to creativity and innovation are extremely rare. The literature has pointed to a large number of mediating variables and possible effects of pdm that could possibly explain the link to creativity, but explicit causal theories and experimental evidence of the validity of such theories remain relatively few. Suggested mediating factors include such different models as enhanced intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 2001; Conti & Amabile, 1999), reduction in resistance to change (De Dreu & West, 2001), pooling of unshared knowledge (Latham, Winters, & Locke, 1994) and better utilization of individual differences in cognitive style (Kirton, 1989), and improved work environment for creativity (e.g., Isaksen, Lauer, Ekvall, & Britz, 2001)

Fluctuating Epistemic Uncertainty in a Design Team as a Metacognitive Driver for Creative Cognitive Processes

Previous design research has demonstrated how epistemic uncertainty engenders localized, creative reasoning, including analogizing and mental simulation. We analyzed not just the short-term, localized effects of epistemic uncertainty on creative processing and information selection, but also its long-term impact on downstream creative processes. Our hypothesis was that heightened levels of uncertainty associated with a particular cognitive referent would engender: (1) immediate creative elaboration of that referent aimed at resolving uncertainty and determining information selection; and (2) subsequent attentive returns to that cognitive referent at later points in time, aimed at resolving lingering uncertainty and determining information selection. Findings: First – contrary to expectations – we observed that increased epistemic certainty (rather than increased epistemic uncertainty) in relation to cognitive referents triggered immediate, creative reasoning and information elaboration. Second, epistemic uncertainty was, as predicted, found to engender subsequent attentive returns to cognitive referents. Third, although epistemic uncertainty did not predict the selection of information, both immediate creative elaboration and subsequent attentive returns did predict information selection, with subsequent attentive returns being the stronger predictor. Our findings hold promise for identifying more global impacts of epistemic uncertainty on creative design cognition possibly mediated through the establishment of lasting associations with cognitive referents