Mocking up : Strategies to engage expert users in designerly thinking.

This research investigated methods to enhance creative collaboration between designers and expert users, in this case surgeons. I adopted a practice led approach in which I acted both as researcher and designer. In the pilot studies, I explored methods and issues using a variety of expert users as proxies for the surgeons. In the main study, I used two live projects to explore and evaluate strategies identified in the pilot studies. Design methods developed from this research enable expert users to employ designerly strategies in design collaboration. These strategies include co-evolution of problem and solution, problem reframing and exploring the solution through making, in this case, sketching and making mock-ups.The design methods evaluated through the practical work are: Contextual Immersion by the designer. This is a process to help designers to understand user's context through a form of 'apprenticeship'. Mocking Up. It is a co-creation of mock-ups, between expert user and designer as a framework for creative collaboration.Through the research, data were collected in the form of interviews and video recordings on co-design sessions allowing analysis by expert reviewers as well by myself. The analysis of these workshops demonstrated that these collaboration strategies can enable the expert users to mobilize their professional experiences and knowledge in a designerly collaboration.The outcome of this research is a description of a co-design approach which I called Mocking Up, which designers or expert users may use to facilitate collaboration between them. Another outcome from this research was a design artefact, a 'Fistula model' to be used by surgeons and radiologist as a visual and physical reconstruction aid of fistula-in-ano cases

Practice-led: designing through making

This paper has investigated a design method for furniture designers in Malaysia to allow users to express their needs and aspirations through place making or creation of meaningful office workspaces. During the field work, we discovered that there were problems in getting the users to explain their ideas through verbal explanations. They did not have the proper techniques and tools to express their ideas. From there we started to use mock-ups as tools to communicate and engage with the respondents in our investigation. In the research, we have identified a promising participatory design approach, role-play with mock-ups. The study revealed that, by using role-play with mock-ups directly with the users, allowed the designers to quickly become aware of arising issues without the need to do a potentially time-consuming, normative and tedious observational study. This research approach is primarily leads to new understanding about practice and described as “practice-led” approach to research. This project had investigated, demonstrated and opened the possibility that these approaches could be turned into a practical participatory process toward design and place making in furniture industry practice in Malaysia

Conservation approach of underutilized screw-pine leaves (daun mengkuang) material: home accessories design made of screw-pine leaves bio-composite

Screw-pine leaves is a material that widely used by local crafter to produce a daily necessity product in old time. With the fast-growing ability, the leaves are easy to be found wild in several areas in Asia.In this the modern lifestyle, Malaysian did not used the material as much as the old time. Therefore, the material has been underutilized material. As a popular craft material, screw-pine leaves are proven to be good material with decent strength and flexibility. Herein, the researcher seized an approach to conserve the utilization of screw-pine leaves as material by developing several home accessories product designs. Product design in this study is a stool, a lighting, a clock and a set of coasters. A set of questionnaires is created,and the attributes are selected through the KJ Method. The questionnaire is run online and validated offline. The analysis shows the differences between both online and offline method. The results, based on comparing the attributes, shows the respondent is positively accepting the form of the design yet least putative on the visual. While among the 4 products, the coaster design is the most acceptable product calculated followed by the stool.Though, other analysis shows that the lighting design is the most prospective product to display the potential of screw-pine leaves bio-composite. Through the study, the application of screw-pine leaves bio-composite demonstrates the example of utilization of screw-pine leaves could lead a new product line in screw-pine leaves industry in Malaysia

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) as a New Recipe of Academic Culture in Creative Industry

This preliminary study aims to introduce User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) as a new recipe that could be implemented in academic culture to make sure the adaptation human and technology will be more effective and improve the creative industry. This study uses a survey questionnaire on purposive sampling to investigate the knowledge perception of 30 design practitioners and structured interview of 9 random samplings to know their perspectives. This study concluded that 60% of design practitioners realize the needs of this new approach, while the interview leads to the three main themes: acceptance level, vitality awareness and tendency expectation. Keywords: Design Emotion, User Experience, User Interface, Academic Culture, Creative Industries eISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5iSI3.255

Applicability of Malaysian Standards (MS 966) in benefiting health and safety of children in Malaysia

Child injuries caused by unsafe climbing equipments has become a public concern. The Malaysian Standards for playground equipment (MS 966: 2001 and MS 966: 2017) was developed and reviewed periodically by the authority of the Consumer Products, Personal Safety and Services Industry Standards Committee, Department of Standards Malaysia (DSM) and SIRIM Berhad, as a means of protecting and benefiting the health and safety of children. This paper aims to examine and critique the applicability of Malaysian Standards on standardizing design specification and safety performance of climbing equipments. The review process focuses on information gaps within the Malaysian Standards in terms of feasibility, where discussions on analytical issues in Malaysian Standards of climbing equipment was presented and recommendations on improvement were proposed. The result showed the standards focused mostly on swings and slides, whilst three analytical issues found that important design and safety standards in climbing equipments were unclear; which included free fall height, maximum height and designated age group. These three analytical issues have to be revised in order to achieve sustainable design in climbing equipment. Results from this paper could assist in revising the current standards incorporated with advanced urban recreation safety for injury control

Video observation for designers: a contextual immersion of the O&G mannequin in clinical training

The use of mannequin is essential in the training of future Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G) doctors as it allows them to gain crucial practical experience in conducting medical procedures before performing these procedures on live patients. Despite of the beneficial technology and design emphasised on the existing mannequin used in the O&G domain, propositions have been made by the O&G experts for a new mannequin to be designed. This proposition was therefore addressed through a co-design project. The Contextual Immersion from Mocking-Up co-design approach was used in this project as it suits the designer-clinical expert co-creation circumstances, and it also enables designers to understand the specific user context. This paper reported the process of preparing video observation for designers as a tool in understanding the context in which the O&G mannequin is used in clinical training. Eight different sessions of clinical simulation were video recorded and analysed in this study. These videos used by designers to provide insights to the respective context such as understanding the usage of relevant mannequin in training medical student. Secondly, the video showed the interaction between the expert and novice users to the mannequin. These factors helps the designers to address the related design issues

Developing advanced appliances control system in toilet and bathroom for aged generation: FGD preliminary findings

When a person gets old, there are many changes that occur in the aspect of biomechanical features such as bones, joints and muscles which can affect their mobility and strength including reduction in vision and hearing abilities. Thus, this condition will expose them to risk of injuries and accidents. Based on previous studies, toilet and bathroom are identified as the common place where injuries and accidents occur involving older persons. Therefore, in order to create safe and suitable environment for older persons, modifications to products, systems and environments for their daily use should be taken into consideration. Environmental modifications and assistive technology (AT) can compensate for limitations in functional capabilities and thus promoting the well-being and independence of the elderly. In this study, the initial approach is through qualitative methods which was Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Information related to issues and problems, causing factors and suggestions for improvement will be used as an important indicator in the development of relevant systems in this study

A speculum.

A speculum (100) having an elongate retractor (101), an annular retaining collar (103), a skirt (102) and an actuator (105) configured to operate the retaining collar (103) between an engaged and disengaged position. The speculum (100) is design to be self retaining once inserted within an animal or human body cavity (400) involving the radial extension of the retaining collar (103) and abutment with the internal walls (404) of the body cavity (400). Examination of the internal cavity walls (404) is possible via exposure through an elongate window (115) formed in the retractor side walls (118)