Measuring the effectiveness of a design method to generate form alternatives: an experiment performed with freshmen students product development

Abstract

This article presents a 'hands-on' method, targeted towards freshmen product development (or industrial design or engineering design), to create basic form alternatives. The hypothesis that the knowledge and the application of a rational form-generation approach improve the ability to create more and more varied designs is verified by means of an experiment. In this experiment, the effectiveness of the initiated method was measured by comparing the results of a first design session (before initiation of the method) with the results of a second design session (after initiation). The outcome shows definite progress in the basic skills to generate form alternatives: after the initiation, subjects generate more proposals with more variation in surface composition. Parameters like the overall amount of design solutions and the evolution in the variation in surface composition were considered. The experiment indicates that the application of a method can enhance a design process and shows that an analytical and rational approach contributes to the basic skills in the study of form. The two-step manipulation method extends the repertory of possible tools and methods that a designer can implement to cope with the problems concerning the creation of form alternatives.

Methodological insights from a rigorous small scale design experiment

“…No-treatment control Placebo control Discussion of limitations Population/ methods description (Corremans, 2009) A pre and post-test study using students to assess a design method ---Ok (Kurtoglu, et al, 2009) A small study using students to assess the value of a computational approach --Ok Ok (Cai, et al, 2010) A small experiment looking at sources of inspiration using multiple short tests ---- (Stones & Cassidy, 2010) A small experiment using students to assess 2 different mediums for reflection ---- (Lemons, et al, 2010) A small study using students to assess the benefits of model building in teaching Based on the review of design research as well as the specific review outlined in Table 1 the problem areas can be categorised into: lack of contextualisation, insufficient system understanding, idiosyncratic Method implementation and insufficient control and normalisation (Table 2). Two additional underlying problems were identified as a lack of theory building and critical review.…”

The role of experimental studies in design research

“…Bar--Eli's (2013) work on sketching, Corremans' (2009) work on design methods and Cai et al's (2010) work on sources of inspiration. Experimental studies form a fundamental part of design research by supporting both theory building and theory testing whilst also providing a flexible and readily accessible research approach (Stempfle and Badke--Schaub, 2002).…”