Back to the drawing board? : exploring process drawing and pathways to drawing participation in higher education for graphic design students

“I can’t draw”. “Idon’tdraw.” While facilitating my first brainstorming session with undergraduate Visual Communication, Designstudents at Western Sydney University (WSU), I was struck by the absence of any drawing activity in the classroom. Technological innovations have significantly reduced the role of drawing in the design process since the mid-eighties; however, research confirms sketching, or indeed any form of hand-eye coordination provides valuable cognitive and communication functions in the creative process. The ambiguous nature of a freehand sketch allows for creative interpretation, encourages ‘fluency’ and iteration, and provides a ‘thinking trail’ for evaluation. The physical act of drawing can also aid concentration and memory. Many professional designers recognise process drawing as a vital ingredient in their creative thinking processes and those of new graduates. Through a literature review and reflection on my creative practices, this thesis identifies the benefits of process drawing to think, create, communicate and collaboratein the design process. So, if drawing is so useful, why don’t design students use rough sketches and thumbnails in the classroom?Through a practice-led enquiry, I reflect on observations made as both “insider” and “outsider” within my communities of practice. As a professional design practitioner, visual artist, teacher and researcher, I investigate the role and value of process drawing in the twenty-first-century classroom.The attitudes, behaviours and ‘designerly’practices of WSU design students are explored through a multiple-choiceWhy draw?questionnaireconducted over six years.The interviews and group discussions with final-year, high achievingWSU designstudents help clarify the creative thinking practicesof these participants and identify possible barriers to wider drawing participation. The observations,interpretation of theliterature and questionnaire and interview findings underpin the studio exploration into possible pathways to foster drawing participationin the classroom. ASpeed Squigglingactivity was designed to demonstrate the value of drawing and to encouragedivergent thinking, iteration, creative flow, and design thinking skills. APre-and Post-Why draw?questionnaire was collected from second-year WSU Design students before and after theSpeed Squigglingtrial. An analysis of students’ written and visual responses explores the effectiveness of this kind of drawing activity to encourage and foster drawing participation.Back to the drawing board?adds to the critical discourse in drawing research and design education that argues process drawing has an important role to play in the twenty-first century classroom and should continue to be clarified, demonstrated and encouraged in design education

Emotion in UK primary schools: Silenced voices in a performance driven culture?

The change in the education system over the last 30 years has altered what it means to be a teacher. Current literature suggests the present focus is on performance and targets (Ball, 2003) and the central remit is to produce desired outcomes in an input/output education system. Critics have argued (Hargreaves, 1998) that teaching is an emotional practice but this largely goes unrecognised and therefore may not be considered whilst expecting teachers to improve standards. The problem that has arisen is that teaching has been acknowledged as involving a large amount of emotion on the one hand, but on the other, the technical discourse of the current educational system determines that this is underplayed in favour of accountability and performance. As such, teachers are left with no emotional voice, which is significant in how they reflect about their practice, and grow professionally

Report on user trials for a new BEI database

Purpose: This article sets out to describe part of the design process in the construction of a new search interface for academic users of The British Education Index and to make some recommendations for interface design and subsequent user support.Methodology: Data and experience from four user trials of a prototype version are reported and discussed in relation to a broadly constructivist conception of information literacy in practice.Findings: There were different purposes and different levels of skill and experience among the professional users in the study. Their actions, comments and suggestions during and following the user trials suggested that the diverse information literacy practices they demonstrated could be enhanced if on-screen clarity and consistency of terminology were improved. The results suggest general recommendations about improvements to the interface and subsequent support in help pages, the web context and training sessions. Such changes can be understood as positive attempts to support and enrich the information literacy practices of research professionals by providing a better search context.Originality and Practical Implications: The enquiry reported was a pragmatic exercise to increase the value of a planned service, informed by a theoretical assumption that the information literacy practices of the users were context-bound and specific to each individual and to the individual's purposes

Experiences of gender and diversity in research teams working on transport related projects funded by EU

This study explores the experience of gender and diversity in research teams in transport and smart mobility related projects funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020. An analysis of interviews with 14 Principal Investigators revealed that despite the growing awareness about gender and diversity inequalities in academia, bias against underrepresented groups exists. However, variation of experiences calls for intersectional lenses when assessing the problem. Findings reveal the need for changes in EU projects application process, implementation, delivery, and impact evaluation to address gender and diversity gaps

An in vivo platform for identifying protein aggregation inhibitors

Protein aggregation is the basis of a vast array of diseases and one of the most expensive problems to overcome during production of biopharmaceuticals. The tendency of proteins to aggregate ensures that demanding purification techniques are a pre-requisite to in vitro analysis of aggregation mechanisms and screening for aggregation inhibitors. In this thesis, a powerful new system was developed to identify aggregation-prone sequences in vivo, and to screen for inhibitors of aggregation. The screen is based on a β-lactamase-tripartite fusion system, where the minimal inhibitory concentration of antibiotic, conferred by the β-lactamase enzyme, is used to evaluate the level of test protein aggregation. Using this in vivo system, the aggregation propensity of the two disease-related proteins human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) and amyloid beta peptide (Aβ) was found to be significantly higher than non-aggregating controls. Importantly, this system provides a new approach to assess aggregation-propensity without the need for purified protein. The system was used to screen small molecules for their aggregation-inhibiting properties against hIAPP. It was found that many results correlated well with the published literature on these molecules, but notably, a number did not. In vitro analysis of hIAPP aggregation in the presence of these molecules validated the results from the in vivo assay, refuting a number of published studies and confirming the power of the tripartite system for identifying aggregation inhibitors. Finally, the system was used to differentiate between an aggregating and non-aggregating human VH antibody domain, to demonstrate the application of the screen to biopharmaceuticals. The in vivo system successfully identified the aggregating test protein, wherein the addition of excipients prevented its aggregation in vivo in a titratable manner. Overall the work presented herein describes a novel, and experimentally simple, in vivo system that provides rapid and accurate analysis of protein aggregation and its inhibition

“EAASI” A Gender- and Diversity- Sensitive Usability Evaluation Tool

The TInnGO project encourages a gender and diversity perspective in design and deployment of smart mobility products. The project has established 5 key criteria – products should be effective, attractive, affordable, sustainable, and inclusive. To encourage designers to focus on these indicators and to inform procurement teams and organisations choosing a product, we developed ‘EAASI’ - a tool for evaluating smart mobility products from a gender and diversity perspective. The tool consists of a checklist of questions regarding gender and intersectional diversity. It was refined through the design experiences of the UK Hub evaluating products in use and ‘design provocations’ developed during group work with design students. The focus of this tool on gender- and diversity-smart thinking in transport gives it a strong appeal over more generic ‘usability’ methods and assessment tools

Pattern languages in HCI: A critical review

This article presents a critical review of patterns and pattern languages in human-computer interaction (HCI). In recent years, patterns and pattern languages have received considerable attention in HCI for their potential as a means for developing and communicating information and knowledge to support good design. This review examines the background to patterns and pattern languages in HCI, and seeks to locate pattern languages in relation to other approaches to interaction design. The review explores four key issues: What is a pattern? What is a pattern language? How are patterns and pattern languages used? and How are values reflected in the pattern-based approach to design? Following on from the review, a future research agenda is proposed for patterns and pattern languages in HCI