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Engineering designers are tasked with complex problems necessitating the use and development of various supports for navigating complexity. Prescriptive design process models are one such tool. However, little research has explored how engineering designers perceive these models' recommendations for engagement in design work. In this exploratory study, we analyzed data from individual semi-structured interviews with 18 mechanical engineering students to identify participant perceptions of design process models. As many design process model visualizations lack explicit attention to some social and contextual dimensions, we sought to compare perceptions among two models drawn from engineering texts and one model that was developed with the intent to emphasize social and contextual dimensions. We identified perceptions of the recommendations from the design process models related to starting and moving through a design process, gathering information, prototyping, evaluating or testing, and what they should consider. Participant perceptions across the three process models suggest different design process models make perceptions of certain recommendations more salient than others. However, participant perceptions also varied for the same process model. We suggest several implications for design education and training based on participant perceptions of the process models, particularly the importance of leveraging multiple design process models. The comprehensive descriptions of participant perceptions provide a foundation for further investigations bridging designers' perceptions to intent, behavior, and, ultimately, design outcomes.
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Reflections on Designing in the Wild: How Theories of Design Information Manifest in Practice
Abstract Information acquisition, utilization, and communication are integral to the design process, but systematic investigation of information behavior is complicated by its variety and the ways in which designers engage with information throughout the design process. Our previous work developed a theoretical framework to categorize the various types of information used during the design process, known as the Information Archetypes Framework. This article explores how these information dimensions manifest in design practice, as reflected on by experienced practicing designers. Deep qualitative analysis of eight interviews with practicing designers revealed that the designers intentionally adapt their behavior to match situation specific needs and navigate the tensions between information dimensions through trajectories and loops.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1755864
- PAR ID:
- 10407123
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering
- Volume:
- 23
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1530-9827
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4054986
