Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:42:08.171Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scrutinizing design educators' perceptions of the design process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2010

Megan Strickfaden  and
Ann Heylighen
Megan Strickfaden
Affiliation:
Department of Human Ecology, Faculty of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Ann Heylighen
Affiliation:
Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When developing a better understanding of the design process there are several possible approaches to choose from. Many studies are based on novice designers (e.g., students) or designers of relatively modest talents. By contrast, some studies have queried designers who are considered to have outstanding and exceptional ability in order to gain an understanding of design at the highest level that it is practiced. The study reported here adopts yet another approach by exploring how design processes are perceived by design educators. The approach is motivated by the observation that teaching design requires consciously distilling the essence of the design process for the students, observing students during their design process and guiding them through the process. As a result, design teachers tend to develop a more articulate view of design processes than most other designers. Nineteen design teachers are interviewed using general topics as discussion points. Such an approach is invaluable when exploring more abstract research questions such as the notion of design processes. This approach differs from more controlled approaches (e.g., protocol analysis) in that it accepts that the data obtained are partially driven by negotiation between the researchers and the participants, and that the discussions are largely stories or narratives about design and designing. The resulting data illustrate that design processes are interpreted, articulated, and understood in a variety of ways by different teachers. These data and subsequent results tell us in rich detail about designing and design teaching, and as a result extend our understanding of the design process.

Keywords

Design KnowledgeDesign ProcessDesign UnderstandingEducators' PerceptionsExperiential Learning
Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 24 , Issue 3: Design Pedagogy: Representations and Processes , August 2010 , pp. 357 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, C. (1974). Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Original work published 1964.Google Scholar
Archer, B. (1963/1964). Systematic methods for designers. Design Magazine 1963–1964, 172–188.Google Scholar
Bernard, R.H. (1995). Research Methods in Anthropology—Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 2nd ed.London: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Boden, M.A. (1995). Creativity and unpredicatability. Stanford Electronic Humanities Review (SEHR)—Construction of the Mind 4(2).Google Scholar
Boden, M.A. (1998). What is creativity? In Creativity in Human Evolution and Prehistory (Mithen, S., Ed.), pp. 22–60. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction—A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge. Original work published 1979.Google Scholar
Buchanan, R. (1995). Rhetoric, humanism, and design. In Discovering Design Explorations in Design Studies (Buchanan, R., & Margolin, V., Eds.), pp. 32–66. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chen, J.D., & Heylighen, A. (2006). Learning design teaching. Proc. Int. Conf. Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region (CSAAR), pp. 577–588, Morocco.Google Scholar
Churchman, C.W. (1967). Wicked problems. Management Science 4(14), 141–142.Google Scholar
Cross, N., Ed. (1984). Developments in Design Methodology. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cross, N. (2000). Engineering Design Methods—Strategies for Product Design, 3rd ed.Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Denzin, N.K., & Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.). (2003). Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, 2nd ed.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Dorst, K. (2006). Understanding Design: 175 Reflections on Being a Designer. New York: Gingko Press.Google Scholar
Eckert, C.M., & Stacey, M.K. (2000). Sources of inspiration: a language of design. Design Studies 21, 523–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gedenryd, H. (1998). How designers work: making sense of authentic cognitive activities. PhD Thesis. In Cognitive Studies 75. Lund: Lund University.Google Scholar
Glassner, B., & Loughlin, J. (1987). Drugs in Adolescent Worlds: Burnout to Straights. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Heskett, J. (2002). Toothpicks and Logos—Design in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heylighen, A., & Neuckermans, H. (2002). Are architects natural case-based designers? Experts speaking. Design Journal 5(2), 8–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubka, V. (1982). Principles of Engineering Design. London: Springer–Verlag.Google Scholar
Jones, J.C. (1963). A method of systematic design. Proc. Conf. Design Methods: Conf. Systematic and Intuitive Methods in Engineering, Industrial Design, Architecture and Communication (Jones, J.C., & Thornley, D.G., Eds.), pp. 53–74. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Jones, J.C. (1981). Design Methods Seeds of Human Futures. Chichester: Wiley. Original work published 1970.Google Scholar
Lawson, B. (1994). Design in Mind. London: Butterworth Architecture.Google Scholar
Lawson, B. (1998). How Designers Think the Design Process Demystified. Oxford: Architecture Press.Google Scholar
Louridas, P. (1999). Design as bricolage: anthropology meets design thinking. Design Studies 20(6), 517–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxman, R. (1994). Precedents in design: a computational model for the organization of precedent knowledge. Design Studies 15(2), 141–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pahl, G., & Beitz, W. (2003). Engineering Design—A Systematic Approach (Wallace, K., Blessing, L., & Bauert, F., Trans.). London: Springer.Google Scholar
Polanyi, M. (1962). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Boston: Smith.Google Scholar
Pugh, S. (1991). Total Design—Integrated Methods for Successful Product Engineering. Reading, MA: Addison–Wesley.Google Scholar
Rittel, H.W.J., & Webber, M.M. (1973). Planning problems are wicked problems. Policy Sciences 4, 155–169.Google Scholar
Rittel, H.W.J., & Webber, M.M. (1984). Planning problems and wicked problems. In Development in Design Methodology (Cross, N., Ed.), pp. 135–144. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ryan, G.W., & Bernard, H.R. (2003). Data management and analysis methods. In Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials (Denzin, N.K., & Lincoln, Y.S.), p. 275. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Schön, D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. London: Ashgate Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Schön, D.A. (1985). The Design Studio: An Exploration of its Traditions and Potential. London: RIBA Publications.Google Scholar
Schön, D.A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey–Bass.Google Scholar
Sellgren, U. (2004). Question-driven methodology. Proc. Int. Design Con., Design 2004, pp. 503–510. Dubrovnik: Design Society.Google Scholar
Simon, H.A. (1973). The structure of ill-structured problems. Artificial Intelligence 4, 181–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, H.A. (1984). The structure of ill-structured problems. In Developments in Design Methodology (Cross, N.G., Ed.). Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Strickfaden, M., & Heylighen, A. (2007). Exploring the cultural capital of design educators. Proc. Int. Conf. Engineering Design, ICED'07. Paris: The Design Society.Google Scholar
Strickfaden, M., Heylighen, A., Rodgers, P.A., & Neuckermans, H. (2006). Untangling the culture medium of student designers. CoDesign 2(2), 97–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strickfaden, M., & Rodgers, P.A. (2004). Scripting—personal narratives in the designing of artefacts. Design Journal 7(1), 3–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vincenti, W.G. (1990). What Engineers Know and How They Know It—Analytical Studies From Aeronautical History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Whitely, N. (1993). Design for Society. London: Reaktion Books.Google Scholar
Zeisel, J. (1984). Inquiry by Design: Tools for Environment—Behavior Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar