Effectiveness of different requirements checklists for novice designers

Abstract

Working under constrained conditions can boost or kill creativity, depending on the nature of the constraints (organizational, personal or task-related). However, a design process without clearly identified constraints, which set the project objectives, could lead to inefficiencies and unfruitful iterations. Some of the most acknowledged procedures to support requirement definition are focused on the use of specific checklists. However, notwithstanding the importance of the task, little attention was dedicated to the verification of the effectiveness of these tools. In such a context, the paper presents an investigation aimed at assessing the performance of three checklists that exploit different strategies to elicit requirements. To that purpose, a sample of fifty engineering students was asked to use the checklists to define the requirements for a specific design case. The outcomes of the experiment were assessed according to well-acknowledged effectiveness metrics, i.e. quantity, operationality, validity, non-redundancy, and completeness. The result of the assessment highlights that checklists based on more general questions or abstract stimuli can better support novice designers in making explicit internally felt design constraints that can potentially lead to more innovative design.

An integrated survey-simulation approach for exoskeleton performance estimation

“…While the former is used to collect the socalled voice of the customer, the extracted qualitative requirements receive a quantitative attribute by means of the latter. This set the target values for the requirements to achieve, to populate a welldefined design specification (Altavilla et al, 2022). The exemplary application presented in this paper concerns the development of an exoskeleton to support body movements in repetitive tasks.…”

Advancing transformative STEM learning: Converging perspectives from education, social science, mathematics, and engineering

“…Empowering youth by leveraging community resources for learning is within the missions of these organizations. In these settings, we imagine participants and leaders co-creating tools and activities that aid in youths' interest-driven questions and innovative design (Altavilla et al, 2021;Kelly & Kelly, 2013). This design work involves taking up youths' and families' social and cultural repertoires of practice, valuing their ways of knowing and engaging (Gutierriz & Rogoff, 2003).…”

Seeing the Past, Planning the Future: Proudly Celebrating 25 Years of Assisting the Convergence of Process Sciences and Design Science

“…The examination of design education is naturally fostering investigations into the cognitive and behavioural dimensions associated with design, learning, and collaboration as highlighted in the Design Education and Engineering Design special issue in 2017 (Kim et al, 2017) and the Design and Learning issue in 2022 (Altavilla et al, 2022). It predominantly revolves around addressing ill-structured problems, thereby introducing layers of intricacy into both the act of design and the process of design education.…”