Identifying divergent design thinking through the observable behavior of service design novices

© 2018, Springer Nature B.V. Design thinking holds the key to innovation processes, but is often difficult to detect because of its implicit nature. We undertook a study of novice designers engaged in team-based design exercises in order to explore the correlation between design thinking and designers’ physical (observable) behavior and to identify new, objective, design thinking identification methods. Our study addresses the topic by using data collection method of “think aloud” and data analysis method of “protocol analysis” along with the unconstrained concept generation environment. Collected data from the participants without service design experience were analyzed by open and selective coding. Through the research, we found correlations between physical activity and divergent thinking, and also identified physical behaviors that predict a designer’s transition to divergent thinking. We conclude that there are significant relations between designers’ design thinking and the behavioral features of their body and face. This approach opens possible new ways to undertake design process research and also design capability evaluation

A Poetics of Designing

The chapter provides an overview on what it means to be in a world that is uncertain, e.g., how under conditions of limited understanding any activity is an activity that designs and constructs, and how designing objects, spaces, and situations relates to the (designed) meta-world of second-order cybernetics. Designers require a framework that is open, but one that supplies ethical guidance when ‘constructing’ something new. Relating second-order design thinking to insights in philosophy and aesthetics, the chapter argues that second-order cybernetics provides a response to this ethical challenge and essentially it entails a poetics of designing. //// 'A Poetics of Designing' is part of the first book-length collection of texts in Design Cybernetics. It introduces the subject from the point of view of aesthetics. Importantly, the chapter argues that second-order cybernetics circumvents the necessity for a muse inspired artist or genius as a mediator between higher spirits and life, in favour of artists and designers who have true agency. //// Cybernetics is often associated with AI, which is, however, only one of the branches that developed on the basis of the interdisciplinary research begun in the 1940s and entitled cybernetics. I hope the chapter contributes to a better understanding of the second-order cybernetics that has been conceived in close relationship with art and design from the late 60s onwards

Data sources and software tools for bibliometric studies

Bibliometrics is a quantification tool which uses scientific communication between scholars as the basis for analysis. Journal articles, monographs, blogs & tweets are the different media of communication. The bibliographic and citation data for bibliometric analysis are collected through Questionnaires, Bibliographic databases, Citation databases, Journal indices, Library catalogs and Information systems, Institutional information systems, National databases and so on. There is a subtle difference between Bibliographic databases and Citation databases. Bibliographic databases contain only the bibliographic details whereas the citation databases contain in addition to bibiliographic details contain citation data as well. CAS, Compendex, ERIC, LISA, Inspec, MathScinet, and Pubmed are exemplars for bibliographic databases; and CiteseerX, Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar and Scopus are examples for Citation databases. Selection of data sources for bibliometrics is always a tricky question as each source has its own merits and demerits. A few studies have been conducted to compare the relative merits among these databases. Bibliometric software and tools are used for bibliographic analyses. The popular bibliometric software/tools are: BibExcel, CiteSpace, Eigenfactor Score, HistCite, Pajek, Publish or Perish, Scholarometer, Scholar h-index Caculator and so on

Wicked problems in design and ethics

While the relationship between ethics and design is usually thought of in terms of the application of the former to the latter, it is not as if ethics is a settled body of theory that can authoritatively guide design practice. Depending which theories or ideas we refer to we receive different guidance as to what to do. Indeed, design may have as much to contribute to ethical theory as vice versa. This essay builds connections between design and ethics, looking to the similarities of structure between wicked problems in design and those dilemmas that are of central concern in normative ethical theory. Understanding design and ethics in mutual terms, ethical questions in design need not be understood in terms of external limitations or trade offs between competing priorities. Moreover, the way designers cope with the ethical challenges presented by wicked problems may inform how we approach complex ethical challenges in other contexts, including some of those that arise within ethical discourse itself