Preparation for Week 13 - analyzing design activity

In two weeks an analysis of design activity will be due in class. Respond to this post with what type of data you might like to analyze to "try out" the ideas we've been discussing in class. I've included some information on how much data there is (you will only have a subset - so that this is feasible!).

• Drawings of design professionals' representations of design (typically 1 page - 18 cases)
• Debriefs in response to a model of design (24 freshmen, 26 seniors, 18 professionals) (typically 2-5 pages)
• Think alouds of individuals designing a playground (24 freshmen, 26 seniors, 18 professionals) (typically 15-25 pages, typically 1-3 hours of activity)
• Videotapes (with transcripts) of 2 engineering design team meetings (7 professionals) (1.5 hour meetings, transcripts around 20 pages)
• Videotapes (with transcripts) of 2 architect design team meetings (architect and 2 clients) (1.5 hour meetings, transcripts around 20 pages)
• Design reports - defrief on "lessons learned" of engineering freshmen on a design team (18 teams, typically 1-2 pages)
• "Cases" of design processes in industry from the Design Council

The data will be posted on Blackboard. I'll also try to put folks in teams so you can talk through what you observe and why.

Week 12 - Situated Cognition and Sketching

This marks our last week into theories of human learning and how design researchers draw on these to try to understand what designers do, what they know, and how they learn.

The Fish and Scrivener article (9 pages!!!) is the "high level" read that describes how sketching and visual imagery helps us think. The Goldschmidt article (1991) is a well known paper that describes how design sketching and visual imagery supports design thinking. Everyone should read these two.

Half the group should read the Blanco article and half the Goldschmidt and Smolkov article - as an example of applying these ideas to design activity. The Blanco article looks at how sketching is used in collaborative design. The other article looks at how visual stimuli influences designing.