Managing external design professionals in the product development process

Bruce, Margaret; Morris, Barny

doi:10.1016/0166-4972(94)90041-8

Cited by 47 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The main contribution of this paper is the firm's reputation enhancement as a reason for contracting external designers. Past research presents innovativeness and freshness as the main reasons for contracting external designers (Bruce & Morris, ). Our findings show that maybe more than innovation, companies look for industry and design community reputation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

External Design for Reputation, Perspective and Exposure

Abecassis‐Moedas

Pereira

2016

Creat Innov Manage

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This paper analyses why and how design‐centred industrial firms with internal design teams contract external designers. This research is based on an exploratory multiple case study methodology, with a sample of five highly reputable design‐centred industrial firms, operating in hypercompetitive industries. While some results challenge the mainstream literature on design management, others expand the existing literature, highlighting that not all firms extract the same benefits from external designers; neither do all external designers bring the same benefits to firms. The paper shows that firms with internal design teams contract external design for (1) reputation (external designers sign products and bring their reputation to the product and to the firm), (2) perspective (external designers bring a different perspective, especially when they come from a different industry from the firm), and (3) exposure (external designers bring exposure that enriches internal design teams).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

External Design for Reputation, Perspective and Exposure

Abecassis‐Moedas

Pereira

2016

Creat Innov Manage

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“…The study by Bruce and Morris supports this by mentioning that in-house designers are less expensive to use compared with out-house designers (Bruce and Morris 1994). This shows that such practitioners can obtain considerable competences in what may seem to be a short time frame.…”

Section: Cost Effectivenessmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…According to Bruce and Morris (1994), an inherent problem in applying external consultants is their lack of domain knowledge. Thus, the practitioners' level of domain knowledge was higher than that of the specialists.…”

Section: Practitioners Outperform Specialists In Thoroughnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Barefoot usability evaluations

Bruun

Stage

2014

Behaviour & Information Technology

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Usability evaluations provide software development teams with insights on the degree to which a software application enables a user to achieve his/her goals, how fast these goals can be achieved, how easy it is to learn and how satisfactory it is in use. Although usability evaluations are crucial in the process of developing software systems with a high level of usability, their use is still limited in the context of small software development companies. Several approaches have been proposed to support software development practitioners (SWPs) in conducting usability evaluations and this paper presents two in-depth empirical studies of supporting SWPs by training them to become barefoot usability evaluators. Findings show that the SWPs after 30 hours of training obtained considerable abilities in identifying usability problems and that this approach revealed a high level of downstream utility. Results also show that the SWPs created relaxed conditions for the test users when acting as test monitors but experienced problems with making users think aloud. Considering the quality of problem descriptions, we found that the SWPs were better at providing clear and precise problem descriptions than at describing the impact, cause, user actions and providing data support for observations.

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“…Emphasis shifted from how best to incorporate the professional designer's specialised skills (McAhlone, 1987) into new product development procedures, to how to use those skills more effectively within a broader range of inputs. These include the contributions of non-design technical specialists and operational managers (Gorb and Dumas, 1987;Dumas and Mintzberg, 1991;Bruce and Morris, 1994). Modern designers are often seen as catalysts in identifying design issues and developing design solutions which draw on a range of technical specialists' expertise and creativity.…”

Section: Design As Knowledge Integration Capabilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Design As Knowledge Integration Capability

Carlisle

Dean

1999

Creat Innov Manage

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The design literature offers two design process models as alternatives for acquiring and using knowledge in design. The best established is the rational problem solving model which calls for technical recommendations. The reflective practitioner model is appropriate to softer, controversial issues that call for ideological prescriptions. We view these models as complementary, not alternative, strategies which can assist in understanding knowledge integration in the design process. This paper offers a more holistic perspective upon design than that commonly found in the Design Studies literature. Our conceptualisation of design as knowledge integration capability suggests that effective design decision making integrates knowledge contributions and reconciles disparate values to a common purpose. The quality of design decision making increasingly depends on the effective integration of knowledge from a range of sources. This is especially true in the knowledge intensive sectors which we have studied. We offer illustrations from biotechnology and note that technical knowledge inputs can not alone ensure a successful outcome. This has implications for the management and practice of design in multidisciplinary project teams.

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Managing external design professionals in the product development process

Cited by 47 publications

References 6 publications

External Design for Reputation, Perspective and Exposure

External Design for Reputation, Perspective and Exposure

Barefoot usability evaluations

Design As Knowledge Integration Capability

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