Identifying divergent design thinking through the observable behavior of service design novices

Abstract

Design thinking holds the key to innovation processes, but is often difficult to detect because of its implicit nature. We undertook a study of novice designers engaged in team-based design exercises in order to explore the correlation between design thinking and designers' physical (observable) behavior and to identify new, objective, design thinking identification methods. Our study addresses the topic by using data collection method of "think aloud" and data analysis method of "protocol analysis" along with the unconstrained concept generation environment. Collected data from the participants without service design experience were analyzed by open and selective coding. Through the research, we found correlations between physical activity and divergent thinking, and also identified physical behaviors that predict a designer's transition to divergent thinking. We conclude that there are significant relations between designers' design thinking and the behavioral features of their body and face. This approach opens possible new ways to undertake design process research and also design capability evaluation.

Design and Design Thinking in STEM Education

“…To study and characterize design thinking in engineering and other fields, various approaches and perspectives have been developed and used, including (1) modeling design process (e.g., Dym and Brown 2012;Schön 1983;Simon 1996), (2) comparing experts and novices (e.g., Ahmed et al 2003;Göker 1997;Kavakli and Gero 2002;Tang and Gero 2001), (3) identifying and specifying design thinking strategies, tactics and skills (e.g., Lawson 2006;Wendell et al 2017), (4) examining specific cognitive features, such as cognitive load (e.g., Sweller et al 2019) and metacognition (Desoete and Özsoy 2009;Kavousi et al 2019;McLaren and Stables 2008), and (5) examining action and thinking in design teams (Hu et al 2018;McNeill et al 1998;Stempfle and Badke-Schaube 2002). Previous studies on design thinking have been fruitful, and also diverse in terms of different aspects or dimensions being focused on.…”

Design Meets Neuroscience: An Electroencephalogram Study of Design Thinking in Concept Generation Phase

“…To accurately mark design activity in different phases, identify the EEG traits of design thinking for different design activities and further observe the changes in design thinking, we explained the 7 core design activities ( Hu et al, 2019 )that have been extracted (see Table 2 ). We marked the EEG data for each designing task and collected data both for the task state and the reference state.…”

“…It is important to quantify the designer’s cognitive processes to develop an effective, structured and logical design methodology ( Nguyen and Zeng, 2010 ). In the whole designing process, the concept generation phase is characterized by the most active and creative design thinking ( Hu et al, 2019 ), during which the designer’s design activity can be generalized into four stages: naming, framing, moves, and evaluating ( Dorst, 1997 ). We developed 18 design activity codes more suitable for the concept generation phase according to the general coding system for design thinking developed by Cross and Dorst ( Hu et al, 2019 ).…”

“…In the whole designing process, the concept generation phase is characterized by the most active and creative design thinking ( Hu et al, 2019 ), during which the designer’s design activity can be generalized into four stages: naming, framing, moves, and evaluating ( Dorst, 1997 ). We developed 18 design activity codes more suitable for the concept generation phase according to the general coding system for design thinking developed by Cross and Dorst ( Hu et al, 2019 ). Considering that a long-lasting experiment would fatigue the participants and consequently affect the EEG signals, we selected 7 core design activities from the 18 codes according to their importance and frequency based on our previous research ( Hu, 2014 ), and observed the participants’ EGG data.…”

Design Thinking in STEM Education: A Review

“…To evaluate and understand the concept of design thinking in engineering studies and various other field of study, various methods and approaches have been coined. These approaches include design process modeling (Dym & Brown, 2012), comparing different expert approaches (Ahmed, Wallace, & Blessing, 2003), pinpointing design thinking skills and planning tactics (Wendell, Wright, & Paugh, 2017), taking into consideration different cognitive skills and features (Sweller, van Merrië nboer, & Paas, 2019), evaluating design team course of action and strategies (Hu, Du, Bryan-Kinns, & Guo, 2019). Previous research and studies for design thinking have provided us with detailed evaluation by focusing on multiple aspects.…”