The development of intelligent hypermedia courseware, for design and technology in the English National Curriculum at Key Stage 3, by the sequential combination of cognition clusters, supported by system intelligence, derived from a dynamic user model

The purpose of this research was to develop an alternative to traditional textbooks for the teaching of electronics, within Design and Technology at Key Stage 3, in the English National Curriculum. The proposed alternative of intelligent hypermedia courseware was investigated in terms of its potential to support pupil procedural autonomy in task directed, goal oriented, design projects. Three principal design criteria were applied to the development of this courseware: the situation in which it is to be used; the task that it is to support; and the pedagogy that it will reflect and support. The discussion and satisfaction of these design criteria led towards a new paradigm for the development of intelligent hypermedia courseware, i.e. the sequential combination of cognition clusters, supported by system intelligence, derived from a dynamic user model. A courseware prototype was instantiated using this development paradigm and subsequently evaluated in three schools. An illuminative evaluation method was developed to investigate the consequences of using this courseware prototype. This evaluation method was based on longitudinal case studies where cycles of observation, further inquiry and explanation are undertaken. As a consequence of following this longitudinal method, where participants chose to adopt the courseware after the first trial, the relatability of outcomes increased as subsequent cycles were completed. Qualitative data was obtained from semi-structured interviews with participating teachers. This data was triangulated against quantitative data obtained from the completed dynamic user models generated by pupils using the courseware prototype. These data were used to generate hypotheses, in the form of critical processes, by the identification of significant features, concomitant features and recurring concomitants from the courseware trials. Four relatable critical processes are described that operate when this courseware prototype is used. These critical processes relate to: the number of computers available; the physical environment where the work takes place; the pedagogical features of a task type match, a design brief frame match and a preferred teaching approach match; and the levels of heuristic interaction with the courseware prototype

Participatory Design in a compressed timeframe, through an unConference format

The paper proposes a model - the 4 Es - for delivery of co-design activity over a short timeframe. This is discussed through the context of a case-study around an unConference event in Nairobi with the Fuel from Waste Network

Development of a design probe to reveal customer touch points in the sale of mass customised products

As mass customisation (MC) increases in both popularity and accessibility, it raises questions as to the nature and notion of the customer co-design experience; what is a ‘co-design experience’, and how can this be best designed for? This paper posits that by its very nature, a co-design experience consists of activities that relate to the co-design of the product via the product configurator (physical store, online store etc), but also that a co-design experience is broader than that, comprising both tangible and intangible elements, and encompassing the entire purchasing experience from the beginning of co-design activity through to the receipt of the customised product and beyond. Traditional research methods will often fail to capture the entirety of this experience. This paper highlights the need for empathic research methods which go beyond current research within the field of MC, and discusses the development of a design probe used to gain insight into co-design experiences

Product design as a vehicle to integrate arts and sciences in design education

In many parts of the world, Higher Education has often considered arts and sciences as an odd combination and many institutions have avoided this particular mix. Historically, this has been the accepted view; however, this view is changing. This paper provides a detailed account of curriculum development and strategies for enabling arts and science disciplines to blend in an effective way. It shows how strong alliances can be built in line with industry and general design practice expectations through “Live Projects”, that is projects sponsored by industry or other clients. The case studies provided in the paper are based on work conducted in the Product Design and Engineering Department at Middlesex University. The paper further demonstrates the importance of industry involvement, and how industrial collaborations can be managed to ensure that the academic provision is both relevant to the sector as well as responding to the needs of students. The paper was presented at the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR07), held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The papers for the conference were reviewed in a double blind review process, and the conference was attended by an audience of over 400 delegates, focusing on emerging trends in design research

X-ray specs, stickers and colouring in: seeing beyond the configurator using design probes

The broad spectrum of research within the field of MC to date has done much to further knowledge relating to the practical implementation of designing and manufacturing custom, co-designed products. However, research into the customer experience remains limited. There is a need to understand both the nature of the codesign experience in MC, and how to design for it? The selection of research methods used to explore this area appears imperative in uncovering useful and relevant data and insights. This paper discusses the application of design probes as a research method for a means of exploring what the literature refers to as the 'multifaceted phenomenon' of customer experience, and introduces a research project using these tools for the construction of conceptual models

Conversational spaces for learning and designing

In this paper we describe a project to trial and evaluate ‘information spaces’ in which learners are more freely able to engage in the kinds of conversations that are beneficial to the practice of design and its education

Hard-to-get-at data from difficult-to-access users

This paper reports on the design and development of a suite of tools to collect, analyze and visualize a diverse range of data from sufferers of mental ill-health. The aim is to allow researchers and ultimately sufferers and clinicians to better understand the ‘individual signatures’ of factors that indicate or identify episodes of ill-health. The tools have been applied as part of a study working with clients of a mental health service that demonstrates positive results con-cerning the applicability and acceptability of the approach in developing a bet-ter understanding of the factors surrounding self-harm behavior

Design for subjective wellbeing: towards a design framework for constructing narrative

We explore the role that interaction with products and services can play in the narratives that we develop about ourselves. We propose a four-level model, which seeks to explain this and use it as the basis for analyzing eight immersion studies. In each, we investigate the role that products and services play in shaping narratives, which in turn reflect our self-identity. We also look at archetypes – the various ideals that we can have about ourselves – and at how the alignment of narratives with these enhances our wellbeing. The model offers the potential to link narrative to design features and to identify new market opportunities. However, we recognize there may be challenges in enabling people to articulate narrative and identify their ideal archetype

Design tribes and information spaces for creative conversations

This paper reports on work in progress to augment the role and practice of Creative Conversations in product design education. We describe changes in practice designed to elevate the importance of conversations and various pedagogical approaches used to support this elevation. These changes are principally manifested in the formation of like-minded Communities of Interest, or ‘Design Tribes’, the adoption of revised design process models and the associated reorganisation of assessment philosophy and practice. We go on to describe and reflect on various technological interventions deployed, that have been designed to weakly augment the conversation space in both situated (studio based contact sessions) and distributed (work undertaken in between contact sessions) settings. Keywords: Design Development, Creative Conversation, Idea Generation, Design Critique, Design Practice

A 122 fps, 1 MHz bandwidth multi-frequency wearable EIT belt featuring novel active electrode architecture for neonatal thorax vital sign monitoring

A highly integrated, wearable electrical impedance tomography (EIT) belt for neonatal thorax vital multiple sign monitoring is presented. The belt has sixteen active electrodes. Each has an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) connected to an electrode. The ASIC contains a fully differential current driver, a high-performance instrumentation amplifier (IA), a digital controller and multiplexors. The wearable EIT belt features a new active electrode architecture that allows programmable flexible electrode current drive and voltage sense patterns under simple digital control. It provides intimate connections to the electrodes for the current drive and to the IA for direct differential voltage measurement providing superior common-mode rejection ratio. The ASIC was designed in a CMOS 0.35-μm high-voltage technology. The high specification EIT belt has an image frame rate of 122 fps, a wide operating bandwidth of 1 MHz and multi-frequency operation. It measures impedance with 98% accuracy and has less than 0.5 Ω and 1o variation across all possible channels. The image results confirmed the advantage of the new active electrode architecture and the benefit of wideband, multi-frequency EIT operation. The wearable EIT belt can also detect patient position and torso shape information using a MEMS sensor interfaced to each ASIC. The system successfully captured high quality lung respiration EIT images, breathing cycle and heart rate