Lucienne Blessing

DRM, a Design Research Methodology

Design research is a fast-growing field of inquiry with significant importance in terms of helping society to create products and processes of improved quality and for enhancing the environment in which we live. The step-wise, hands-on approach of DRM studies the ways in which design research can best be undertaken to address specific questions. This study gives rise, for the first time, to a generic and systematic design research methodology intended to improve the quality of design research its academic credibility, industrial significance and societal contribution by enabling more thorough, efficient and effective procedures. Professors Blessing and Chakrabarti provide a comprehensive list of types of design research linked to appropriate research methods familiar as well as new and supported by illustrative examples throughout the text. Furthermore, the book points the way to more detailed sources of various established research methods that can be applied. The practical emphasis of the text is reinforced by a whole section of design research project examples contributed by eminent design researchers and placed in the context of the proposed methodology to demonstrate the application of the variety of approaches available in a structured fashion. DRM, a Design Research Methodology, speaks to a broad readership: it will provide the graduate student with an excellent grounding in good design research practice, inculcating good habits of research for the future and showing how the process of understanding and improving design can become more effective and efficient; it will interest the academic and industrial researcher as a source of useful and well-ordered methods within a common design research ethos, as well as a methodological framework for research projects and programmes; it will attract the supervisors of young researchers by offering research methods and a well-thought-out and logically structured research process for use in courses on design research.

Sustainability in manufacturing: Recovery of resources in product and material cycles

Global Framework.- Life Cycle Engineering and Management.- Product Development.- Processes and Tools for Disassembly.- Planning for Remanufacturing and Recycling.- Enabling for Sustainability in Engineering.- Roadmap.

An Overview of Descriptive Studies in Relation to a General Design Research Methodology

This paper describes a general design research methodology that aims at a more rigorous approach to design research by piecing together the various existing design research areas and by encouraging collaboration with other disciplines. It discusses the challenges involved in doing design research, such as the large number of factors that influence design, and highlights the importance of descriptive studies. The papers presented in this book are used throughout as examples, and set in the context of the proposed methodology in the Conclusion and Outlook at the end of this book. These papers and others revealed some of the key issues that need addressing: the formulation of criteria for success, the use of results from descriptive studies in the development of design methods and tools, and the validation of such methods and tools against these results.

PSS Layer Method – Application to Microenergy Systems

Within this chapter three main topics are wrapped. First, a relatively new method for the development of Product-Service Systems (PSS) called PSS Layer Method is introduced. Second, microenergy systems are introduced as a commendable example to teach the theory of Product-Service Systems. Third, sustainability as a driver for Product-Service Systems and microenergy systems will be emphasized. All three topics are set in relation to an industrial case where the PSS layer method had been applied to a microenergy system which in this case is a solar home system. Such systems are used for energy supply in off-grid installations in rural regions, e.g., in weak infrastructures of developing countries. The reader will learn the basics of the PSS layer method, be introduced to microenergy systems and get an insight on a discussion on sustainability concerns in this case. The chapter closes with reflections on experiences, recommendations for an industrial application of the PSS layer method and an outlook.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FUNCTION AND AFFORDANCE

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to clarify the concept of affordances, as introduced by Maier and Fadel, to relate affordances to function, to try to reduce confusion about both of these terms by providing a detailed model, and to expose some of the existing research on function to a wider audience. The paper starts by constructing a model of function that relates devices to an environment. We then extend the model to include goals. Next we express the concept of affordances in terms of the model already constructed. The paper concludes by discussing the impact that use of affordances might have on the designer’s pattern of reasoning.Copyright

Gestural interfaces for elderly users: help or hindrance?

In this paper we investigate whether finger gesture input is a suitable input method, especially for older users (60+) with respect to age-related changes in sensory, cognitive and motor abilities. We present a study in which we compare a group of older users to a younger user group on a set of 42 different finger gestures on measures of speed and accuracy. The size and the complexity of the gestures varied systematically in order to find out how these factors interact with age on gesture performance. The results showed that older users are a little slower, but not necessarily less accurate than younger users, even on smaller screen sizes, and across different levels of gesture complexity. This indicates that gesture-based interaction could be a suitable input method for older adults. At least not a hindrance - maybe even a help.

Special Issue: Representing functionality in design

, As designs exist to satisfy some purpose or function, knowledge of functionality is essential in a wide variety of designrelated activities, including generation and modification of designs, comparison, evaluation and selection of designs, and explanation, diagnosis or repair of designs. Functional modelling refers to a wide variety of approaches to model a design and its requirements from its functional aspects so as to allow reasoning about its functionality for various activities such as the above. Function has been historically interpreted in a wide variety of ways: for instance, as an abstraction of the intended behavior of a design, an indexing of its intended behavior, the relationship between a design and its environment, the external behavior of a design, or its internal behavior. Functional reasoning as a design approach has been around for at least 25 years now (Koller, Rodenacker, and Roth in Germany, French in the United Kingdom, Freeman and Newell in the United States, Hubka in Switzerland, and Yoshikawa in Japan are but a few examples of the early researchers in this area), and have attempted to support design in the conceptual stage by methods and approaches to describe function, to establish function structures (e.g., by using generally valid functions), to satisfy these subfunctions and combine them into concept alternatives (e.g., by using catalogues of physical effects and working principles), and to evaluate these (e.g., by using morphological matrices). However, the emphasis was largely prescriptive, and computer supports passive in nature. The advent of computers and the development of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques provided a renewed focus on reasoning about functions, extending the area into diagnosis and explanation, and allowed computers to take a more active role in the design process, especially in its generative aspects. A formal representation of functionality is essential for supporting any of th€se activities on computers. Tradition-

Supporting the Knowledge Life-Cycle

This paper describes the mismatch between the information sources available to designers and the information sources accessed by designers. Possible reasons for this mismatch are accessibility, availability and trustworthiness. Current support for product development does not deal with this issue because only part of the knowledge life-cycle is addressed. A model of the knowledge life-cycle is introduced that focuses on knowledge generation. To support the knowledge life-cycle,· a system is introduced based on a model of the design process. This system, PROS US, is discussed and the issues needing further development identified.

An analysis of functional modeling approaches across disciplines

Abstract Authors across disciplines propose functional modeling as part of systematic design approaches, in order to support and guide designers during conceptual design. The presented research aims at contributing to a better understanding of the diverse functional modeling approaches proposed across disciplines. The article presents a literature review of 41 modeling approaches from a variety of disciplines. The analysis focuses on what is addressed by functional modeling at which point in the proposed conceptual design process (i.e., in which sequence). The gained insights lead to the identification of specific needs and opportunities, which could support the development of an integrated functional modeling approach. The findings suggest that there is no such shared sequence for functional modeling across disciplines. However, a shared functional modeling perspective has been identified across all reviewed disciplines, which could serve as a common basis for the development of an integrated functional modeling approach.

The introduction of a design heuristics extraction method

Abstract This paper introduces a novel method for analyzing conceptual design data. Given a database of previous designs, this method identifies relationships between design components within this database. Further, the method transforms these relationships into explicit design knowledge that can be used to generate a ‘heuristic-based’ model of the design domain for use at the conceptual stage. This can be viewed as a knowledge extracting method for the conceptual design stage. Such a method is particularly interesting, as the conceptual stage typically lacks explicit models to describe the trade-offs that must be made when designing. The method uses either principal components analysis or self-organizing maps to identify the relationships, and this paper describes all the elements required by the method to successfully extract and verify design knowledge from design databases.