This paper describes a software tool called DRed (the Design Rationale editor), that allows engineering designers to record their design rationale (DR) at the time of its generation and deliberation. DRed is one of many proposed derivatives of the venerable IBIS concept, but by contrast with other tools of this type, practicing designers appear surprisingly willing to use it. DRed allows the issues addressed, options considered, and associated arguments for and against, to be captured graphically. The software, despite still being essentially a research prototype, is already in use on high profile design projects in an international aerospace company, including the presentation of results of design work to external customers. The paper compares DRed with other IBIS-derived software tools, to explain how it addresses problems that seem to have made them unsuitable for routine use by designers. In addition to the capture and presentation of the DR itself, the set of linked DR graphs can be used to provide a map of the contents of an electronic Design Folder, containing all the documents created by an individual or team during a design project. The structure of the knowledge model instantiated in such a Design Folder is described. By reprising a design case study published at the DTM 2003 conference, concerning the design of a Mobile Arm Support (MAS), the DRed knowledge model is compared with the previously proposed Design Data Model (DDM), to show how it addresses the shortcomings identified in the DDM. Finally the methodology and results of the preliminary evaluation of the use of DRed by aerospace designers are presented.
This paper describes a study into industry perceptions of barriers and drivers for inclusive design. The study investigated perceptions of manufacturers and retailers of consumer product in the United Kingdom (UK), and compared their perceptions with those of companies in the United States (US) and Japan. It was found that the perceptions of major drivers for inclusive design were similar for manufacturers and retailers in the UK, but the perceptions of barriers to inclusive design differed between manufacturers and retailers. Industry attitudes towards legislation or government regulations in the UK differed from those in the US and Japan. The study concluded that 'perception barriers' form the majority of the barriers and were the most significant, followed by 'technical barriers' and then 'organizational barriers.' Consequently strategies should focus on raising awareness to overcome perception barriers, and providing supportive tools to overcome technical barriers.
An important aspect of artifact/product design is defining the aesthetic and emotional value. The success of a product is not only dependent on it’s functionality but also on the emotional value that it creates to its user. However, if several designers are faced with a task to create an object that would evoke a certain emotion (aggressive, soft, heavy, friendly, etc.) each would most likely interpret the emotion with a different set of geometric features and shapes. In this paper the authors propose an approach to formalize the relationship between geometric information of a 3D object and the intended emotion using fuzzy logic. To achieve this; 3D objects (shapes) created by design engineering students to match a set of words/emotions were analyzed. The authors identified geometric information as inputs of the fuzzy model and developed a set of fuzzy if/then rules to map the relationships between the fuzzy sets on each input premise and the output premise. In our case the output premise of the fuzzy logic model is the level of belonging to the design context (emotion). An evaluation of how users perceived the shapes was conducted to validate the fuzzy logic model and showed a high correlation between the fuzzy logic model and user perception.
The aesthetics of a product influences the decisions made by consumers when purchasing products. Research has shown that designers are not always successful in creating a product with the desired perception amongst its users. Hence methods and tools which can support the designer in predicting how the aesthetics of their products are likely to be perceived are of value. In this paper the authors propose an approach to formalize the relationship between geometric information of a 3D object and the intended emotion using fuzzy logic. 3D objects (shapes) created by design engineering students to evoke a certain perception were analysed. Three different fuzzy logic models, with different input variables, for evaluating massiveness and lightness in a form are proposed. The authors identified geometric information as inputs of the fuzzy model and developed a set of fuzzy if/then rules to map the relationships between the fuzzy sets on each input premise and the output premise. In our case the output premise of the fuzzy logic model is the level of belonging to the design context (emotion). An evaluation of how users perceived the shapes was conducted to validate the fuzzy logic models and showed a high correlation between the fuzzy logic model and user perception. The models show the possibility of creating tools to support designers with forms to evoke the desired perceptions amongst consumers.
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