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. A comparison of designer activity using core design situations in the laboratory and practice. Design Studies, 34(5), 575--611. DOI: 10.1016DOI: 10. /j.destud.2013 A comparison of designer activity using core design situations in the laboratory and practice Philip A comparison of designer activity using core design situations in the laboratory and practiceIn 2011 one quarter of all articles published in Design Studies and the Journal of EngineeringDesign used experimental studies. However, there is little work exploring the relationship between laboratory and practice. This paper addresses this by detailing an analysis of designer activity in three situations commonly studied by design researchers: information seeking, ideation and design review. This comparison is instantiated through three complementary studies: an observational study of practice and two experimental studies.These reveal a range of similarities and differences that are described using a mixed methods approach. Based on this it is concluded that laboratory studies are important research tools and that clear and definable relationships do exist between design activity in practice and the laboratory.Keywords: experiment; designer activity; practice; laboratory; research methodsExperimental studies play a key role in design research, accounting for a quarter of all articles in Design Studies (7 out of 28) and the Journal of Engineering Design (9 out of 40) in 2011. However, practitioners often perceive there to be a dichotomy between fundamental experimental study and applied, practice based, design research. Friedman (2000) states that "Practitioners sometimes reject vital streams of research while seeking solutions that do work" (p.22). This perspective is further elaborated by Edmonds et al. (2005) who suggest that the underlying failing of experimental study is that the subject is not design practice itself but actually a simulation of practice in an contrived context. As such, a key point of contention can be characterised as the unknown affect that simulation and contrived context have on designer activity.This type of issue also appears in many fields related to design research. For example, Eifert et al. (1999), in behavioural research, state that the relevance of laboratory based research has been understated due to the gap in understanding external validity. Further, both Bonetti et al. (2010) in behavioural research andMarsden (2007) in education research have adopted the approach of developing intermediary studies -taking an experimental approach into a practice 2 context - in order to directly address this gap. Bolton and Ockenfels (2008) describe this as losing control in a controlled way. Although this approach can be important it is most effective when based on substantive theory, allowing key factors to be controlled as well as offering predictions to be examined (Levitt & List, 2007). As little predictive theory is currently available in design research the authors argue that as a field, we are not yet ready to fully adopt ...

Highlights> A case study surveying 20 behavioural design projects is reported. > Significant patterns in process progression are found in the surveyed projects. > A new design process is proposed that integrates behaviour change and design. > Key learnings for behaviour change through design are identified. AbstractNudge, persuasion, and the influencing of human behaviour through design are increasingly important topics in design research and in the wider public consciousness. However, current theoretical approaches to behaviour change have yet to be operationalized this in design process support. Specifically, there are few empirically grounded processes supporting designers in realising behaviour change projects. In response to this, 20 design projects from a case company are analysed in order to distil a core process for behavioural design. Results show a number of process stages and activities associated with project success, pointing to a new perspective on the traditional design process, and allowing designers to integrate key insights from behaviour change theory. Using this foundation we propose the Behavioural Design process.

Distributed teams are an increasingly common feature of engineering design work. One key factor in the success of these teams is the development of short- and longer-term shared understanding. A lack of shared understanding has been recognized as a significant challenge, particularly in the context of globally distributed engineering activities. A major antecedent for shared understanding is question asking and feedback. Building on question-asking theory this work uses a quasi-experimental study to test the impact of questioning support on homogeneous and heterogeneous teams. The results show significant improvement in shared understanding for both team types (27% improvement for heterogeneous and 16% for homogeneous), as well as substantial differences in how this improvement is perceived. This extends theoretical insight on the development of shared understanding and contributes one of few empirical studies directly comparing homogeneous and heterogeneous teams in the engineering design context. This has implications for how distributed teams can be more effectively supported in practice, as well as how shared understanding can be facilitated in engineering design