Carole Bouchard

A European emotional investigation in the field of shoe design

In this paper we report the results of a Kansei Engineering System study. A methodology for the application of Kansei Engineering at the European level has been developed and validated in the field of shoe design by means of the development of experimental studies in two different phases of product design: the information phase in the earliest stages of the design process and the generation and evaluation phase corresponding to the latest stages of the process.

Nature and role of intermediate representations (IR) in the design process: case studies in car design

This paper aims to show the key role of the intermediate representations (IR) in the design process and especially in the car design process. For a better understanding of the concept of design, which is by nature conceptual, we propose to study the concept of IR. To this end, we will present the three following parts: description of IR in the design process; nature of IR; and role of IR in the design process. We chose to illustrate this paper with our experience essentially in car design because the design process in this field is historically formatted and very formalised and complex. Besides, this activity is based on the intervention of many professional teams.

Design process perceived as an information process to enhance the introduction of new tools

Our research adds its weight to collaboration between companies and the research laboratory in conceiving new products (CPN/ENSAM Paris). Our work focuses on industrial design, creativity and innovation. In this paper we have formalized the design information process to build new tools of communication, decision-making and creativity for the different players in the design process.

Kansei Information Processes in Early Design: Design Cognition and Computation

This chapter considers the Kansei information processes involved in the early design process. It emphasizes the necessity of formalizing the earliest phases of design, i.e., the information phase. After a longitudinal research led since 1997, a theoretical model of the information phase of design was proposed. This model was then refined through experiments that we led from various research projects that were developed during the last years, thanks to national and European supports. In the framework of the research presented here, the objective was to refine the model especially by considering the cognitive implicit operations which occur in the early generative phases, i.e., between the inspirational phases and the sketching ones. The paper starts with the definition of the following terms: design process, design information, sectors of analogy, kansei information, kansei structures, and kansei rules. Kansei information characterizes the whole corpus of information which the designers deal within the early design process. Especially, from the information phase, the creative process based on metaphors and analogies is decrypted and formalized, with the extraction of generic rules that, after understanding, may be used more systematically in the generative phase of design through future computer-aided design tools. Finally, we discuss some advances related to cognition and computation of Kansei processes in design.

Integration of Environmental Assessment in a PLM Context: A Case Study in Luxury Industry

Nowadays, the environment becomes a major issue in our society. It gives rise to regulations, market demand and stakeholder’s pressure which are concerning companies. These latter have to reduce the negative impact of their new product by eco-design and adopting a continuous improvement for their existing product portfolio. To do so, environmental assessment system is needed. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most known and recognized. However, this method is complex, requires significant resources and a large amount of accurate data. We propose a methodology to connect a simplified LCA tool with PLM system and ERP to evaluate an entire product portfolio at any time. This will allow design teams to consider the environmental issues in early design phase and gives the companies a global vision of their product portfolio. This methodology is experimented with packaging products of luxury brand, using the Teamcenter PLM system and a Simplified LCA Tool.

A new semantic text-image search engine for car designers

The Trends Research ENabler for Design Specifications (TRENDS) system integrates flexible content-based image retrieval facilities with database management and other useful functionalities that aim at improving the inspirational information gathering process in the early design stages. TRENDS is a 6th Framework Programme IST project, funded by the EC that started 01/01/2006 and will end 31/12/2008. It aims at elaborating the design trend boards dedicated to product designers in business to consumer markets such as for the automotive and original equipment manufacturers. The main innovation is related to the content based image and semantic text information search engines and to the integration of the elements under a cutting edge user interface specially designed to fulfill the designerspsila requirements.

Emotion prototyping for robot design

We combined various concepts with co-design, and experience design into a creative workshop that allows the engineers to see functional and morphological differences for a better robot design. Four different types of cards were used for the designer and the engineer to co-build their common ground in designing robots, in particular, emotional cards were of a value to indicate how robots would be perceived by the end users.

Memorable projects and aesthetic experiences in an industrial R&D lab

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show the mechanism of aesthetic experiences of work in a research and innovation context – an R&D laboratory of a multinational communications and information technology company. Analysing memorable projects of this laboratory through the lenses of aesthetics is a useful way to understand organizational and innovation culture and the quality of life of researchers and innovators. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory study focusing on memorable projects of 31 researchers who worked on 70 projects during four years was conducted. The data analysis is based on the grounded theory. Findings The study reveals six key dimensions that describe the dimensions of R&D researchers’ aesthetic experiences: perceptive, emotional, intellectual, communicative, collective and organizational. These dimensions are closely related and support an innovation culture in an R&D environment. Research limitations/implications The aesthetic dimensions have to be correlated to innovation performance indicators to better understand which aspects are the most relevant for innovation. Practical implications The paper proposes first examples of implications for the industry to foster an innovation culture through aesthetic experiences. Originality/value No study has been done on aesthetic experiences in an R&D environment.

Design for Additive Manufacturing: Supporting Intrinsic-Motivated Creativity

Emotional aspects and designers’ motivations in Design For Additive Manufacturing are rarely studied. Still, as they can influence creative behaviors, it is worth of interest to draw some bases for a relation between designers’ motivations and the field of Additive Manufacturing. This paper aims at identifying the motivations that push designers to deal with AM in their practice. We have highlighted that they experience some extrinsic motivations: technical improvements, economics and social environments pressures. We also noticed that creative designers, apart from AM, usually experience some intrinsic motivations and, moreover, that it exists an ideal state to generate creative concepts: the Flow. To support creative designers in DFAM in reaching the Flow, we then identified 4 key levers through the potential of AM: the newness of AM processes, the needed skill of 3D modelling, the investigation of new shape grammars and finally the opportunity of embodying concepts into physical objects. To benefit from this potential, we assume that designers’ intrinsic motivations should be supported: we identified three required conditions. The first one is the use of a proper vocabulary i.e. the expression Additive Manufacturing instead of 3D Printing. The second one is the development of a design process which integrates a creative approach. The third condition is the use of AM objects as experience triggers during creative sessions to arise positive emotions.

Addressing complexity in design: a systemic model of creativity and guidelines for tools and methods

Abstract The aim of this paper is to show how the systemic approach makes it possible to redefine creativity; it highlights new ways to stimulate it in complex industrial contexts. A model was constructed from a state-of-the-art review categorized according to three conceptual scales (environment, individual, and object) using the systemic approach. It highlights three fundamental interactions (perceptual, cognitive, and social) that synthesize the mechanisms of creativity as a whole. From this model, three guidelines were proposed: the use of analogical tools to stimulate perceptual interactions, the use of a language based on visual forms to stimulate cognitive interactions, and the use of a cyclical process alternating individual, social and expert creativity to stimulate social interactions. Deployed together as an embedded method, we argue that these guidelines improve creative performance in complex contexts by focusing on interactions that stimulate the overall creativity system. We conclude with an implementation of this method in our industrial context (a car manufacturer), and test the guidelines in the context of real industrial projects.