Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Designer’s knowledge'

Numerous works have been produced on the topic of Design for Manufacturing (DFM) to better educate the designers of products as to various methods of manufacturing and their specific requirements. It is the common aim of these works to eliminate so called "over the wall" product development in which procedurally ignorant designers pass largely un-producible design concepts to manufacturers, who are then required to make necessary refinements and changes. When applied correctly, DFM results in the efficient and economical production of well-designed products, whose forms have been attuned to the particular requirements of their final method of production at an early stage of development. However, one aspect of using such approaches is that design intent is frequently compromised for the sake of manufacturability and innovative design concepts are often dismissed as being unfeasible. Recent advances in additive manufacturing technologies and their use in the direct manufacture of end-use products from digital data sources has brought about a new method of production that is known as Rapid Manufacturing (RM). Unlike conventional subtractive machining processes, such as milling and turning which generate forms by removing material from a stock billet, RM parts are grown from an empty part bed using the controlled addition of specialised build materials. Additive manufacturing requires no forming tools, is unrestricted by many conventional process considerations and is capable of producing practically any geometry. The freedoms that are associated with this technology facilitate the design and realisation of product concepts that would be unachievable with any other method of production. This promotes an almost boundless design philosophy in which innovative product solutions can be designed to best meet the needs of specification criteria, rather than the production process with which they are to be made. However, unlike other forms of manufacturing, the newness of this technology means that there is no proven aid or tool to assist industrial designers in exploiting the freedoms that it offers. Using information that was collated in the literature review and case study projects, a systematic design approach was proposed and then tested in a series of user trials with groups of industrial design students and practicing industrial design professionals. The results of these trials are discussed, showing a common acknowledgement from both groups that the proposed DFRM tool was of assistance and that it had an influence upon their design work. However, whilst the student group were generally receptive toward tool uptake, the experienced designers showed more of a reluctance to abandon their own "tried and tested" methods in favour of the unknown and unproven approach. It is concluded that this attitude would be fairly representative of wider opinion and that the future uptake of any such tool would be reliant upon sufficient evidence of its successful application. Hence, suggestions are made for future work to continue tool development and for more validation trials to be conducted with its intended user group.

The initial objective of this thesis aimed at comparing the performance characteristics of two yachts belonging to King Charles II of England during the latter years of the 17th century. This goal, which called for accurate modelling of the shape of each yacht, was extended to investigate the design processes used by Dutch and English shipwrights of the period. It was soon decided that, instead of focusing on the performance of each ship or, more precisely, of their theoretical ‒therefore questionable‒ reconstruction, this research would focus on the design knowledge of the early modern period used to design the different yachts and contemporary ships. This was necessary, firstly, as a means of helping with the theoretical reconstruction which was one of the initial aims of the research. But, most importantly, it was necessary to produce a picture of the knowledge-space in which ships of this period were designed and built. Consequently, this research offers an overview of the current narrative that describes ship design knowledge of the early modern period and criticises some aspects of it. Moreover, as the current understanding of such knowledge is included within a longer narrative that describes ship design knowledge of shipwrights from the earliest known examples of ships to the present, this research also looks into the manner in which ship design knowledge is understood within such a long narrative. This research provides arguments to show that ship design knowledge could be re-defined. It provides a more nuanced description of the design knowledge of traditional shipwrights and includes the knowledge of early modern shipwrights within this re-modelled narrative.

Les systèmes commerciaux de recommandation de vêtements ont été largement utilisés dans l'industrie de l'habillement. Cependant, les recherches existantes sur la conception de vêtements numériques se sont concentrées sur les évolutions techniques du processus de conception virtuelle, avec peu de retours de métier provenant des designers. La coupe d'un vêtement joue un rôle important dans l'achat de celui-ci par le client. Afin de développer un vêtement correctement ajusté, les stylistes et les modélistes doivent ajuster le patron du vêtement plusieurs fois jusqu'à ce que le client soit satisfait. Actuellement, le modélisme traditionnel présente trois inconvénients majeurs : 1) il est très long et inefficace, 2) il repose trop sur des concepteurs expérimentés, 3) la relation entre la forme du corps humain et le vêtement n'est pas pleinement explorée. Dans la pratique, le styliste joue un rôle clé dans la réussite du processus de conception. Il est nécessaire d'intégrer les connaissances et l'expérience du styliste dans les systèmes actuels de CAD de vêtements afin de fournir rapidement une solution de conception réalisable, centrée sur l'homme et à faible coût, pour chaque besoin personnalisé. En outre, les services basés sur les données, tels que les systèmes de recommandation, la classification des formes corporelles, la modélisation du corps en 3D et l'évaluation de l'ajustement des vêtements, devraient être intégrés dans le système de CAD de l'habillement afin d'améliorer l'efficacité du processus de conception.Sur la base de ces besoins, cette thèse propose un système de recommandation intelligent composé de modèles de vêtements ajustables pour conduire à la conception de vêtements personnalisés. Le système fonctionne en combinaison avec un nouveau processus de conception nouvellement développé, à savoir l'identification de la forme du corps humain - la recommandation d'une solution de conception - la représentation virtuelle 3D et l'évaluation - l'ajustement des paramètres de conception. Ce processus peut être répété jusqu'à ce que l'utilisateur soit satisfait. Le système de recommandation proposé a été validé par quelques cas pratiques de conception réussis
Commercial garment recommendation systems have been widely used in the apparel industry. However, existing research on digital garment design has focused on the technical development of the virtual design process, with little knowledge of traditional designers. The fit of a garment plays a significant role in whether a customer purchases that garment. In order to develop a well-fitting garment, designers and pattern makers should adjust the garment pattern several times until the customer is satisfied. Currently, there are three main disadvantages of traditional pattern-making: 1) it is very time-consuming and inefficient, 2) it relies too much on experienced designers, 3) the relationship between the human body shape and the garment is not fully explored. In practice, the designer plays a key role in a successful design process. There is a need to integrate the designer's knowledge and experience into current garment CAD systems to provide a feasible human-centered, low-cost design solution quickly for each personalized requirement. Also, data-based services such as recommendation systems, body shape classification, 3D body modelling, and garment fit assessment should be integrated into the apparel CAD system to improve the efficiency of the design process.Based on the above issues, in this thesis, a fit-oriented garment pattern intelligent recommendation system is proposed for supporting the design of personalized garment products. The system works in combination with a newly developed design process, i.e. body shape identification - design solution recommendation - 3D virtual presentation and evaluation - design parameter adjustment. This process can be repeated until the user is satisfied. The proposed recommendation system has been validated by some successful practical design cases

Tese de Mestrado em Cor.
O objectivo desta investigação é o de estabelecer o conhecimento de cor necessário ao exercício do design, devendo ser incluído nos seus programas do ensino. Para atingir esse fim foi realizada uma extensa pesquisa bibliográfica sobre todos os aspectos da cor, assim como um conjunto de técnicas de recolha e análise de dados. Um grupo seleccionado de especialistas da cor deu a sua opinião sobre programas de ensino relacionados com a cor. Fez-se um inquérito, aos estudantes de duas instituições que ministram cursos de design: Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (FAUTL) e Instituto de Artes Visuais, Design e Marketing (IADE), para avaliar o seu conhecimento sobre cor. As conclusões da investigação definiram como relevante o conhecimento da temática seguinte para o ensino e prática do design: ▪ Teorias da cor, abordadas como suporte histórico para uma melhor compreensão do fenómeno da cor. ▪ Mecanismo da visão da cor, com o desenvolvimento suficiente para transmitir a noção do modo como o ser humano percebe a cor. ▪ Percepção e Interacção da cor, incluindo luz e pigmento, as suas características e complementaridade, os modos de percepção da cor e a influência do meio ambiente. ▪ Os efeitos psicofisiológicos da cor, e o simbolismo da cor, que conduzem a uma maior consciência da interpretação da cor. ▪ Os diferentes sistemas de colorimetria, usados habitualmente no design, e as diferentes aplicações da cor no design que produzem equilíbrio, ênfase, e ritmo.

The export apparel industry in Sri Lanka is seeking to develop higher value fashion products and services for overseas consumers with the support of locally trained fashion designers. This thesis investigates how Sri Lankan designers are prepared by higher education and the apparel industry to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills that can contribute to the industry's development. The thesis identifies the collaborative approach of developing Sri Lankan fashion designers through higher education and apparel industry forming a "Fashion Education Eco-system".

This study reacts to the segregation of knowledge and practice surrounding weft-knitted textiles, their design and applications. This study challenges current disciplinary practices that divide knit into scientific, design and art areas by describing a designer-maker methodology, which is used to produce auxetic, weft-knitted textiles. By using a designer-maker’s practice-led perspective to create functional fabrics, it seeks to challenge the perception that technical and functional research in textiles is or should be the domain of scientific methodologies and engineering practice. This study does not apply external methodologies to the research design, but extracts its methods and values from an existing knit design practice, built from experiential knowledge, that becomes the basis for the methodology. Qualitative and quantitative measures of success are both vital to the methodology used in this study and both subjective and objective perspectives are embraced. The practical work uses designer-maker practice to lead the development of 30 auxetic fabric samples. These fabrics are appraised using a variety of methods including personal reflection, numerical measurement and feedback from focus groups of other practitioners. The information developed on auxetic materials is presented in various ways such as using percentages, diagrams, photographs and videos to encourage dissemination and knowledge transfer between different disciplinary groups. Auxetic effect is conveyed in photographic, diagrammatic, video, graphical, percentage and Poisson’s ratio data to increase understanding to wide audiences and to satisfy traditional, scientific auxetic researchers as well as a new area of design-based practitioners. This study presents the case that there is a valuable, transferrable knowledge in knit design practice that represents existing methodologies used by knit practitioners as well as providing a new methodology for consideration by science and engineering practitioners. This is demonstrated through the production of auxetic, knitted fabrics using a design approach that incorporates qualitative, quantitative, practical, aesthetic, functional and theoretical skills.

This thesis investigates the question; what is the significance that a cross-section of New Zealand graphic designers placed on using knowledge of social contexts to inform their practice? It reveals whether graphic designers in the research, drew on knowledge of social contexts that arose from implicit knowledge, whether they relied on dedicated research to locate knowledge of social contexts and the extent to which that knowledge of social contexts was significant to their practice.The theoretical framework for the research was primarily based on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, social structure and practice, to find the degree to which knowledge of social contexts came out of either a conscious process of enhancing cultural capital in designers’ day-to-day practice, or from dispositions inculcated over designers’ lifetimes through habitus at various levels. Bourdieu’s sociological perspectives are particularly applicable to this research, because of the way in which he places great emphasis on cultural knowledge as the basis of cultural investigation.The ethnographic research modelled on Bourdieu’s methods, in which empirical studies are essential to theoretical research, used conversation analysis in which the reflexivity of the interviewer contributed strongly to the collection of data. The research method was based on a series of seven case studies conducted with New Zealand graphic designers of varying backgrounds and working situations, between 2002 and 2003. The research investigated how they had acquired knowledge of social contexts for practice and the importance that they placed on bringing this knowledge into their practice. The research group ranged from recent graduates to senior and accomplished graphic designers.Graphic designers showed the significance of knowing about social contexts, through the cultural capital that was important to their practice and to their positions in the graphic design field. This research has highlighted the difficulty that designers encountered, to varying degrees, in identifying how knowledge of social contexts came into their practice or even how they had acquired this knowledge.Knowledge of social contexts was shown to be derived from designers’ own social structures and the durable dispositions and practice relative to their background, from the habitus of the internal culture of a designer's firm, from within the wider field of graphic design practice and the changing dispositions arising from it and finally, from graphic designers’ external social worlds. This research suggests that contextual knowledge also needs to be brought into the teaching of graphic design, rather than being seen to arise implicitly in conceptualisation and studio practice.

This paper aims to investigate the polarization present within the Design Thinking field ofresearch. Starting off from Johansson-Sköldberg et al. (2013), who first identified the distinctionbetween the two discourses Designerly Thinking and Design Thinking in 2010, we constructed a literature review and a framework of analysis based on conception of knowledge and its relationto the advancement of a research field. We claim that root-causes of the polarization derive from different knowledge bases, which then inhibit knowledge exchange as well as production. We conclude the paper by providing a suggestion for a way forward, claiming the applicability ofEngaged Scholarship within the realm of Design Thinking to make the field of research progresscreating relevance for both practitioners and scholars.

Design Thinking är ett spännande och fortfarande relativt outforskat område med rötter i Service Management. Med hjälp av designerns verktyg och metoder och en mångvetenskaplig grund med fokus på kundens behov kan Design Thinking bidra till att utveckla produkter och tjänster och genom detta öka lönsamheten för företag. Syftet är att göra en deskriptiv studie av området Design Thinking som metodiskt arbetssätt vid tjänsteutveckling. Detta appliceras sedan på verkligheten för att komparativt se hur tre svenska bolag arbetar med tjänstutveckling inom en av världens största tjänstebranscher utifrån områdena Service Management och Design Thinking. Uppsatsen beskriver utvecklingen från Service Management till Design Thinking och hur man har gått från att utveckla tjänster till att designa tjänster. Uppsatsen har använt en kvalitativ metod vid datainsamling. Detta har gjorts genom intervjuer med de tre valda försäkringsbolagen samt med en tjänstedesignbyrå som samarbetat med ett av bolagen. Teoriavsnittet inleds med en teoretisk bakgrund där en djupare förståelse skapas inom områden Service Management och Design Thinking. Detta för att underlätta tolkningen och analysen av teorierna. En teoretisk modell för tjänsteutveckling har valts ut för respektive område, samt en som tolkas dess skillnader och likheter. Samtliga teorier har sedan tolkats och analyserats utifrån den empiriska studien av försäkringsbolagen. Några slutsatser som uppsatsen har genererat är att de studerade försäkringsbolagen inklusive tjänstedesignföretaget arbetar utifrån kundens behov när det utvecklar tjänster. Däremot visar undersökningen att försäkringsbolagen inte interagerar med kunden i den utsträckning som teorin säger samt att försäkringsbolagen anlitar tjänstedesignföretaget i ett senare skede av tjänsteutvecklingen än vad som egentligen är syftet enligt teorin. Intresset för Design Thinking kommer främst från tjänstedesignföretaget och inte i första hand  från försäkringsbolagen. Utvecklingen från Service Management till Design Thinking visar även att designerns roll har förändrats då denne nu kommer in och är med genom hela processen istället för att som tidigare endast vara med i slutskedet.

Design Thinking is a relatively young and unexplored field with its roots in Service Management. By using the tools and methodology of designers, working in multidisciplinary teams and focusing on the consumers needs Design Thinking can contribute to the development of services and thereby increase the profitability for business. The objective of this paper is to construct a thorough description of the field Design Thinking and its methodology in service development. This is subsequently applied to the swedish insurance sector to comparatively describe how three insurance companies develop their services in one of the worlds greatest service industries. The paper initially describes and explores the development from Service Management to Design Thinking and how one has gone from merely developing services to designing services. Some conclusions that the paper has discovered are that the insurance companies we studied focus on consumer need. However, the study shows that the companies don't interact with the consumer to the extent that is described in the the theorethical models relevant for the paper. According to the study of Design Thinking, the designer is supposed to be involved throughout the entire process and not merely in the later fases as they are in Service Management. The analysis shows that the insurance companies choose to recruit designers only when they feel it to be neccesary, not involving them in the business development which is the next competitive advantage for companies today.

In Sweden upper secondary school education is organised in programmes. One of these programmes is the Technology programme that covers five orientations, one of which is Design and Product Development. This thesis is based on the idea that a clearer link between upper secondary school and the demands of professional life in the area of product development is beneficial to both students and industry. Product development is performed in cross-functional teams were understanding of others competences is important. It is therefore argued that, in order to enhance both teaching and learning, interdisciplinary considerations need to be explored. In this thesis, we turn to engineers and industrial designers. The aim of the present study is to get professional actors’ views on knowledge and skills needed within the field of design and product development and to examine whether there are key areas that facilitate an interdisciplinary approach suitable to focus on for educational purpose. As artefacts play a central role in product development the informants’ views on different products/artefacts are also examined. This reasoning results in an a two-part overall research question (a) What thoughts do professional engineers and industrial designers express regarding necessary knowledge and skills, and (b) what relevance does this have for upper secondary school teaching of product development? This overall research question is examined through two sub- studies, both performed at the same time, one conducted as a semi- structured interview and the other using the repertory grid technique. Twelve engineers and industrial designers are interviewed. The first study examines the informants’ thoughts on knowledge and skills required in their work. The same informants’ interpretations and valuations of artefacts are examined in the second sub-study. In sub-study 1 two topics of significance to the informants are identified. These topics are: [1] To act within the team (Figure 4). The ability to navigate and position oneself within a team is, according to the interviewees, a necessary skill in design and product development work. Its character can be described as including specific vocational knowledge and skills as well as issues of general and interdisciplinary nature as collaborating, compromising, communicating, and leadership. The second topic [2], to CAD (Figure 4) includes both skills with CAD software and the ability to understand relationships between a CAD model on screen and the final product. The third topic [3] - a valuation of artefacts - is the outcome of sub- study 2 (Figure 4). This topic was found interesting and further analysed, resulting in the development of a comparison procedure. The result demonstrates how the interviewees interpret and discuss artefacts’ functionality linked to cultural values. These three topics are found to be relevant for technology education at upper secondary school level geared towards design and product development to explore. To act within the team can inspire the development of activities in which project and teamwork are in focus. The purpose of the CAD model in product development is to visualise a product that does not yet exist. To CAD highlights the complexity of this visualisation ability. In the educational context the students can train this ability by developing digital models into physical models or prototypes. Valuations of artefacts, the interviewees associate artefacts’ functionality with certain characteristics. In education students should learn that we are not neutral in our relations to products and other artefacts. In conclusion, a need for teachers to discuss artefacts from different perspectives such as sustainability, usability, identity and so on is also pointed out.

QC 20150212

La tesi si prepone di analizzare il significato di design nel contesto dell’industria agro-alimentare in Italia, con particolare riferimento alle teorie dell’innovazione tramite servizi (Miles et al., 1995; Tether et al., 2001). Precedenti studi sulla professionalizzazione di una disciplina hanno supportato una prima fase di ricerca, durante la quale si è cercato di valutare se si sta sviluppando una disciplina del design agro-alimentare (Hodgson, 2002). Successivamente, la ricerca ha analizzato come le imprese del settore abbiano sviluppato ed integrato specifiche competenze mirate a fare del design uno strumento di crescita innovativa (Jennings e Wood, 1994, Meroni, 2000, Miele e Murdoch, 2002). La metodologia si basa su casi studio tratti da dati di fonte primaria e secondaria. Un primo risultato ha evidenziato l’importanza dell’innovazione di tipo organizzativo, in particolare il lavoro di progetto ed un rapporto frequente con il cliente. Lo studio enfatizza inoltre che le aziende agro-alimentari debbano considerare aspetti legati all’innovazione in concomitanza a quelli legati all’estetica. Nei casi in cui il prodotto non rappresenti l'unica interfaccia col cliente (es. settore vinicolo), la ricerca suggerisce che la funzione di servizio del design emerge come preminente.
This thesis unveils the meaning of design in the context of the agro-food industry in Italy from a service innovation perspective (Miles et al., 1995; Tether et al., 2001). Different theoretical underpinnings have been called: previous studies on the professionalisation of a discipline have helped to assess the extent to which a discipline of agro-food design is emerging (Hodgson, 2002). Additional insight is provided by the analysis of firms and sectors that have integrated design-related expertise into their activities and, consequently, contributed to further our understanding on this matter (Jennings and Wood, 1994, Meroni, 2000, Miele and Murdoch, 2002). A qualitative approach has combined both primary- and secondary-source data. The study indicates that organisational innovations are crucial for the competitiveness of Italian design firms, project-based activity and close relationship with client firms in particular. Case studies on medium and large agro-food firms point to a blurring line between design and marketing. The study emphasises that both the innovation and aesthetic components must be considered. In cases where the product is not the only interface with the client (e.g. winemaking sector), the research suggests that the service trait of the design activity is becoming increasingly relevant.

La tesi si prepone di analizzare il significato di design nel contesto dell’industria agro-alimentare in Italia, con particolare riferimento alle teorie dell’innovazione tramite servizi (Miles et al., 1995; Tether et al., 2001). Precedenti studi sulla professionalizzazione di una disciplina hanno supportato una prima fase di ricerca, durante la quale si è cercato di valutare se si sta sviluppando una disciplina del design agro-alimentare (Hodgson, 2002). Successivamente, la ricerca ha analizzato come le imprese del settore abbiano sviluppato ed integrato specifiche competenze mirate a fare del design uno strumento di crescita innovativa (Jennings e Wood, 1994, Meroni, 2000, Miele e Murdoch, 2002). La metodologia si basa su casi studio tratti da dati di fonte primaria e secondaria. Un primo risultato ha evidenziato l’importanza dell’innovazione di tipo organizzativo, in particolare il lavoro di progetto ed un rapporto frequente con il cliente. Lo studio enfatizza inoltre che le aziende agro-alimentari debbano considerare aspetti legati all’innovazione in concomitanza a quelli legati all’estetica. Nei casi in cui il prodotto non rappresenti l'unica interfaccia col cliente (es. settore vinicolo), la ricerca suggerisce che la funzione di servizio del design emerge come preminente.
This thesis unveils the meaning of design in the context of the agro-food industry in Italy from a service innovation perspective (Miles et al., 1995; Tether et al., 2001). Different theoretical underpinnings have been called: previous studies on the professionalisation of a discipline have helped to assess the extent to which a discipline of agro-food design is emerging (Hodgson, 2002). Additional insight is provided by the analysis of firms and sectors that have integrated design-related expertise into their activities and, consequently, contributed to further our understanding on this matter (Jennings and Wood, 1994, Meroni, 2000, Miele and Murdoch, 2002). A qualitative approach has combined both primary- and secondary-source data. The study indicates that organisational innovations are crucial for the competitiveness of Italian design firms, project-based activity and close relationship with client firms in particular. Case studies on medium and large agro-food firms point to a blurring line between design and marketing. The study emphasises that both the innovation and aesthetic components must be considered. In cases where the product is not the only interface with the client (e.g. winemaking sector), the research suggests that the service trait of the design activity is becoming increasingly relevant.

The practice of communication design has developed from a visual-communication service industry into a multi-facetted profession, directly involved with the maintenance and creation of social and cultural capital. The ancestry of communication design has led to its continued perception as a neutral tool for the achievement of communication. This research project aims to investigate the possible contributions of communication design as a practice, if it were to re-align its goals towards supporting and facilitating the community within which it is practiced. This research project is about the communication designer and the communities within which they practice: clients; target markets; companies; managers; neighbourhood groups; groups in a particular place and time; communities of practitioners; and emergent or yet to emerge communities. The project investigates designer agency and the ways for a communication designer to work holistically within communities: being or becoming part of them; working through and with them toward the achievement of communication goals. As much as it is about communicating, it is also about community. It is about designers working as conduits, facilitating and enabling the communities of their practice to find expression. It is about a democratisation of communication design authorship and power. It is about the design process as an educational process - all parts and participants within a design projects' community learning and teaching simultaneously. The research project encompasses a series of component projects, across a range of different media, using a practice-led-research framework and a reflective practitioner methodology as the key investigative tool.

Design fixation is a phenomenon experienced by professional designers and engineering design students that stifles creativity and innovation through discouraging ideational productivity, fluency and diversity. During the design idea and concept generation phase of the design process, a reliance on perceptual surface feature similarities between design artefacts increases the likelihood of design fixation leading to design duplication. Psychologists, educators and designers have become increasingly interested in creative idea generation processes that encourage innovation and entrepreneurial outcomes. However, there is a notable lack of collaborative research between psychology, education and engineering design particularly on inductive reasoning of undergraduate engineering students in higher education. The data gathered and analysed for this study provides an insight into property inference decision-making preferences and decision switching (SWITCH) patterns of engineering undergraduates under similarity-based inductive judgements [SIM] and category-based inductive judgements [CAT]. For this psychology experiment, property induction tasks were devised using abstract shapes in a triad configuration. Participants (N = 180), on an undergraduate engineering programme in London, observed a triad of shapes with a target shape more similar-looking to one of two given shapes. Factors manipulated for this experiment included category alignment, category group, property type and target shape. Despite the cognitive development and maturation stage of undergraduate engineers (adults) in higher education, this study identified similarity-based inductive judgements [SIM] to play a significant role during inductive reasoning relative to the strength of category-based inductive judgements [CAT]. In addition to revealing the property inference decision-making preferences of a sample of undergraduate engineers (N = 180), two types of switch classification and two types of non-switch classification (SWITCH) were found and named SIM_NCC, SIM-Salient, Reverse_CAT and CAT_Switching. These different classifications for property inference switching and non-switching presented a more complex pattern of decision-making driven by the relative strength between similarity-based inductive judgements [SIM] and category-based inductive judgements [CAT]. The conditions that encouraged CAT_Switching is of particular interest to design because it corresponds to inference decision switching that affirms the sharing of properties between dissimilar-looking shapes designated as category members, i.e., in a conflicting category alignment condition (CoC). For CAT_Switching, this study found a significant interaction between a particular set of conditions that significantly increased the likelihood of property inference decisions switching to affirm the sharing of properties between dissimilar-looking shapes. Stimuli conditions that combined a conflicting category alignment condition (where dissimilar-looking shapes belong to the same category) with category specificity, a causal property and a target shape with merged (or blended) perceptual surface features significantly increased the likelihood of a property inference decision switching. CAT_Switching has important implications for greater ideational productivity, fluency and diversity to discourage design fixation within the conceptual design space. CAT_Switching conditions could encourage more creative design transformations with alternative design functions through inductive inferences that generalise between dissimilar artefact designs. The findings from this study led to proposing a Cartesian view of the concept design space to represent the possibilities for greater movements through flexible and expanding category boundaries to encourage conceptual combinations, greater ideational fluency and greater ideational diversity within a configuration design space. This study has also created a platform for further research into property inference decision-making, ideational diversity and category boundary flexibility under stimuli conditions that encourage designers and design students to make inductive generalisations between dissimilar domains of knowledge through a greater emphasis on causal relations and semantic networks.

La finalité de ce travail exploratoire, inscrit dans le cadre d’une didactique professionnelle du design naissante, est de comprendre l’incidence de l’alternance sur les apprentissages d’étudiants en design. Dans ce but, les connaissances ou savoirs impliqués et les représentations que les prescriptions proposent sont extraits puis mis en regard des représentations que les étudiants construisent de l’activité de conception en tant qu’objet social ou en jeu dans les activités d’apprentissage. Pour aborder ces représentations décrites ou construites, puis leur incidence sur l’activité de conception et sur les apprentissages, il est fait appel à un champ théorique multidisciplinaire et à un cadre méthodologique dialectique s’appuyant sur une analyse curriculaire et sur une analyse de l’activité des étudiants-apprentis. Les résultats mettent en lumière des représentations, parfois antagonistes, de l’activité de conception et de la profession de designer. Ils montrent que l’alternance des temps et des lieux d’apprentissage est un révélateur, pour les étudiants, des spécificités de l’activité de conception au sein de chacun des environnements. Ainsi, les environnements « organisants » et « capacitants » du curriculum réel, impensés dans le prescrit, modifient et régulent l’activité et le développement des compétences. Enfin, la production de connaissances, prescrite par le curriculum dans la cadre d’un « mémoire de recherche », permet aux apprentis-designers-chercheurs de développer des formes d’expertises qui interrogent sur les interactions entre savoirs pour agir et métaconnaissances pour concevoir et semblent redéfinir la représentation de la compétence de conception
The purpose of this exploratory work, grounded on an emerging professional pedagogy of design, is to understand the impact of work-linked training in design on the learning of the design activity by students. To that end, the knowledge involved is extracted, juxtaposed with the representations that the requirement offers, and then set against the representations that students build of design activity as a social object as well as those involved in learning activities. Therefore, the theoretical field which is used is multidisciplinary. It induces a dialectical methodologic framework based both on a curricular analysis, necessary to understand the observed teaching situations, and on an analysis of the students’ activities. The outcomes shed light on these (sometimes conflicting) representations of creative design activity and of the designer’s profession. Outcomes also show the alternating times and places of learning situations reveal to the students the specificity of both designing situation. Thus, the “organizing environments” of the real curriculum and untaught within the required one, modify and regulate the system of interactions and the development of the students’ design skills. Moreover, the exchange device induces a timeline and “enabling” working and learning environments. Finally, the production of knowledge, required by the curriculum through the “research thesis”, allows the “apprentices-designers-researchers” to develop forms of expertise that question the interactions between knowledge to act and meta-knowledge to design and seems to redefine the representation of the design skill

A reestruturação do trabalho resultante do desenvolvimento da ‘sociedade do conhecimento’ provocou importantes mudanças nas organizações e nos seus trabalhadores. O sector do vestuário, enquanto sector tradicional e com uma necessidade de mão-de-obra intensiva foi dos primeiros sectores onde as diversas organizações procuram utilizar diferentes formas de flexibilidade com o objectivo de se manterem competitivas num mercado cada vez mais internacionalizado. O presente trabalho desenvolve-se a partir do projecto Europeu WORKS, centrando a sua atenção nas ‘profissões do conhecimento’ na indústria, nomeadamente no grupo profissional dos designers do vestuário em três países europeus (Alemanha, França e Portugal) e em diferentes organizações. Para perceber o impacto da reestruturação do trabalho no grupo estudado iremos analisar as mudanças que ocorreram nas suas condições de trabalho, qualificações e competências, uso de conhecimento, identidade profissional e trajectórias de carreira.
The restructuring of work resulting from the emergence of knowledge-based society brought important changes in organisations and their employees. The clothing sector, as a traditional sector with a big need of intensive workforce, was one of the first ones where different organisations seek to use different forms of flexibility with the main purpose of remain competitive in a market increasingly internationalised. The present work was developed from the European project WORKS, focusing the ‘knowledge occupations’ in industry, namely the occupational group of fashion designers in three European countries (Germany, France and Portugal) and in different organisations. In order to understand the impact of work restructuring in the occupational group we will analyse the changes that occurred in their working conditions, skills and competences, use of knowledge, professional identity and career trajectories.

碩士
銘傳大學
商品設計學系碩士在職專班
99
This study aims to investigate the execution conditions and differences on the personal design management of visual communication designers, and the effects of the knowledge management on personal design performance and personal job effectiveness. It hopes to collect and induce the personal knowledge management ways of the designers to provide designers as a reference, and to be able to provide design educators and design managers a reference when they are teaching and leading design groups in the future. This study was carried out by the interview and questionnaire survey methods, the results are as follows: 1. The results of personal knowledge management: (1)Most designers are to be open-minded to absorb knowledge of all kinds. And they are dedicated to learn from things that are not related to design field. (2)Most designers are able to execute the work of knowledge saving and think it a rather important section for knowledge management. (3)Most designers are willing to share their knowledge with others in order to motivate themselves to learn more. And by sharing their own experiences with others, the designers will be able to elevate their personal professional knowledge and skills in design. (4)Most designers take references of other’s experiences to modify their working styles and make use of the information and knowledge saved in the database. 2. The influence of the attribute of personal background to the execution of personal knowledge management: The execution conditions of knowledge management are affected by factors such as age, positions in the office, organization type, and designer’s working experiences. The designers who also work as managers are superior to the designers who work only as a designer on the all execution factors; for different age designers, only the designers above 41 years old do better than the designers under 30 years old on the “professional knowledge integration” factor; designers working in design companies perform better than designers working in other organizations on the most execution factors; designers having more than 21 years of design experiences also tend to be better than designers having less than 20 years of working experiences on the most execution factors. 3. The influence of personal knowledge management on design performance and job effectiveness: The results of regression analysis indicate that “knowledge saving” and “professional knowledge further education” have significant influence on personal design performance. Second, “knowledge sharing” and “knowledge saving” have significant influence on personal job effectiveness - work feeling. Third, “knowledge applying”, “professional knowledge further education” and “knowledge saving” significantly affect personal job effectiveness – work performance. Last, “knowledge saving”, “knowledge sharing”, “knowledge applying” and “professional knowledge further education” have significant influence on the whole personal job effectiveness.

碩士
朝陽科技大學
工業設計系
106
Knowledge management is one of the most important management methods in modern times. Due to the trend of demanding creative innovation by clients,interdisciplinary skills have become a necessity in today’s industry. Designer is a job that requires knowledge in various disciplines. This study investigates in the field of ceramics, through interviews with ceramics artists regarding the question of contraction, to explore the knowledge of the craftman based on experience. In the production of ceramic products, the inevitable shrinkage of the clay on the thickness, length and width of the product can be estimated in advance to achieve effective control of product quality. These estimations are higly experience based and can also serves as a guildline to help the qulity control of the firing process, as well as cost manegment. The main discussion investigates in whether the shrinkage is affected by the difference in length and width. It is further verified through the comparasion between stereo samples and plane samples. Clay plates are made for experienment; paired sample t- test is applied to analyze the contraction rate of plates with same length but different thickness, and ANOVA(Analysis of variance) is applied in the analysis testing the difference in contraction between different lengths and thicknesses. The experiement shows, when the thickness is at 4.0mm and the length varies from 7.0cm-10 cm, the contraction have little difference. However, the length has a significant impact on shrinkage when the thickness is at 5mm. Between different sample groups, the contraction ratio has little difference between a 6mm and a 7mm thickness. It can be concluded once the thickness reaches 6mm; the impact on contraction is largely reduced. In the mean while, clay cup is used for stereo sample to compare with the plate sample. The comparison shows an average of a 12 % contraction rate on the plate sample and a 7% contraction rate on the clay cup. Thus, it can be concluded that the plane contraction is different from the steric contraction. This experiment shows that the main casue for the impact of contraction is the production method, followed by the clay materials, firing temperature, and firing time.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
This exegesis is an articulation of Qualitative practice-based research (Candy 2006)- as a pragmatic and auto-ethnographic study- that correlates with the creative body of work entitled ‘The Art of Illusio’. This exegesis seeks to better understand and outline a theoretical framing of the context of the illustrator as designer. The research presents a perspective on how illustrators interact with experience and approach design through a reflexive engagement with theoretical concepts: habitus, tacit knowledge, and the design process. The notion of habitus condenses the designer’s system of dispositions and sense of place towards the world. I examine how habitus and tacit knowledge orients that system of disposition towards the perception of experiences. This research combines contemporary discussions of the seminal work of Pierre Bourdieu (Habitus- The Rules of Art, Distinction, Outline of a theory of Practice, The Field of Cultural Production), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Perception-Phenomenology of Perception) and Michael Polanyi (Tacit Knowledge- Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, The Tacit Dimension), to propose that a combination of these conceptual understandings, along with their related concepts, work in a complex generative structure that frames design and illustration practice. The exegesis seeks to interrogate this framing through an exposition and positioning of academic literature, the analysis of professional literature, and the analysis of others practice through qualitative semi-structured interviews (Crouch & Pearce 2013), and the auto-ethnographic and reflective examination of my own illustration practice (Collinson 2009). It is intended for design researchers. It is also intended for design and illustration students, early career design researchers, and ultimately anyone undertaking practice-based research. My original contribution to knowledge is a framing for how Illustrators embody their experiences. Illustrator as a designer sits in the world of experience; the word ‘experience’ encapsulates most aspects of the context, outcomes, processes and elements of designing. The embodiment of experience is a fundamental device in the way illustrative imagery and visual communication translate and perpetuate ideologies, metaphors, mythologies, allegory, narratives and in particular the anthropomorphisation of the human condition. Illustrators translate experiences, and the perceptual synthesis of those experiences into the illustration and the design of fictitious, but representational, narratives, worlds, characters and environments. Drawing becomes a crucial part of articulating the world and capturing perception of experience and reality. Drawing has a long established history of being described as a way of thinking (Minichiello 2005). Illustration practice, as a resolved outcome of drawing, permeates a large scope of different forms of visual communication as a resolution of the design process. Contemporary and seminal discussions of design express that design is a transformative process (Roxburgh 2013, Crouch & Pearce 2013:2,15, Simon 1981), acting as an instrument for the transformation of the artificial world. Uniquely the illustrator not only responds to experience of the world by articulating it, but also is actively engaged in the perpetual transformation of it.

博士
國立成功大學
企業管理學系
103
The purpose of our research is to develop a theoretical framework during the voice of customers (VOC) and voice of designers (VOD) in knowledge-based viewpoint (KBV) and clarify these critical factors related to knowledge-processing mechanisms in the Taiwanese construction industry. A survey of depth-interviews were conducted with 15 construction companies and a questionnaire analysis of 136 samples showed the positive connections between voice of customers (VOC), operation environment, strategic intent, knowledge-processing mechanisms, and voice of designers (VOD). In turn, these measures of a firm’s effectiveness of knowledge-processing mechanisms from voice of customers (VOC) to voice of designers (VOD) were related to the firm’s strategic intent and operation environment, and we provide an empirical framework which can quickly and comprehensively understand an organization for fitness with business objectives in Taiwanese companies.

Dissertação de Mestrado em Design e Multimédia apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia
O seguinte estudo parte da busca de uma postura autoral dentro do design. Numa fase inicial, através de casos de estudo de autores que se distanciam do que consideramos “design comercial” ou “design feito por encomenda”, pretendemos entender como estes podem explorar as tangentes entre a arte e o design. Neste sentido, também procuramos compreender onde o designer se situa quando o trabalho parte de uma autoproposta. Simultaneamente, ao longo do projeto, visamos o crescimento a nível profissional e pessoal, bem como o desenvolvimento de capacidades técnicas, criativas e concetuais. Estas acabam por surgir devido à fomentação do espírito critico e do conhecimento empírico, relacionando-se com as metodologias de investigação abordadas que, por sua vez, assentam diretamente na prática e na experimentação. A partir dos resultados da nossa experiência e ao longo do desenvolvimento desta investigação, procuramos incentivar a prática autoiniciada, tal como demonstrar os benefícios dos projetos autoiniciados para o crescimento do designer. De forma pessoal, ilustramos questões que comprovam o nosso crescimento durante o progresso de cada projeto. Através da reflexão sobre os mais diversos temas, selecionados por razões pessoais, constatamos os contributos da prática e da conciliação de meios analógicos com meios digitais. Os principais conclusões que retiramos desta pesquisa passam pela necessidade de atenuação de limitadores criativos que conduzem os projetos à inovação e, este fator, mostra-nos a possibilidade de uma nova forma de estar e subsistir como designer na sociedade, que acaba por se situar algures entre o dito “design comercial” e o design de autor.
The following study arises from the search of an author’s identity within design. In an initial phase, through the study of some authors that diverge from the "commercial design" or known as the "order design", we seek to understand how these explore the lines between art and design. Along these lines, we also look into understanding where the designer stands when their work comes from a personal initiative. Simultaneously, throughout the project, we aim professional and personal growth as well as the development of technical, creative and conceptual abilities. These end up emerging due to the promotion of critical spirit and empiric knowledge, correlating methodologies of the investigation that were approached that lean directly on practice and experimentation. From the results of our experiment and throughout the development of this investigation, we forward to encourage the self-initiated practice as well as show the benefits of self-developed projects to the growth of the designer. In a personal way, we illustrate topics that show our growth during the process of each project. Reflecting on a manifold of themes, personally chosen, we acknowledged the contribute of practice and conciliation of both digital and analogic assets. The main conclusion goes through the need of mitigation of creative restraints that drive projects to innovation and, that factor shows the possibility of a new way of being and existing as a designer in society that ends up being somewhere in between the known "commercial designer" and an author designer.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
工業設計系碩士班
93
As we know, knowledge has been treated as one of the main sources of competitiveness for many enterprises. Within the domain of knowledge management, knowledge sharing can not only play a critical role in the effective knowledge management, but also facilitate the knowledge growth of the members of an enterprise. Moreover, the nature of design that is a profession of intensive knowledge application, and designer willingness in knowledge sharing is extraordinarily vital for such a circumstance. Therefore, the objectives of this study include: 1) to explore the factors affecting designer willingness in knowledge sharing, and 2) to discover the designer willingness in knowledge sharing in Taiwan’s Information Industry Firms. Based on literature review, this study extracted five factors, such as the type of knowledge, personality, power, trust, and organizational culture, which might affect the designer willingness in knowledge sharing, Furthermore, this study employed a depth interview with BenQ to realize how BenQ’s designers share their knowledge with others. From the case, this study found out that a reward system could be also treated as a critical factor on affecting the designer willingness in knowledge sharing. Based on the findings of literature review and case interview, this study further constructed a research framework and several hypotheses concerning the factors affecting the knowledge sharing willingness of designers. The framework was tested with data collected from 62 designers of 23 Taiwan’s information industry firms. The findings of this study confirm that: 1) the designer willingness in knowledge sharing is higher when the personality of the designer tends to be conscientious; 2) the designer willingness in knowledge sharing is low when the organizational culture is conservative; 3) the designer willingness in knowledge sharing is high when there is an internal reward system in an enterprise. Lastly, to improve the designer willingness in knowledge sharing, this study suggested that the organizational culture of an enterprise should try to avoid a conservative culture and establish an appropriate knowledge sharing reward system to enhance the utilization of design knowledge in the enterprise.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
視覺傳達設計系碩士班
93
The in-depth interview, questionnaire survey and KJ-method were used in this study which aims to understand the relations between advertising design license certification and the knowledge and ability required by a professional designer. The research process is divided into four stages: (1) from the questionnaires, the researcher analyzed the ability of the professional designers-to-be when they answered the test questions of Grade B and C in the Advertising Design Technique Certification; (2) through in-depth interviews with professionals and teachers, in industry and academia, who had received the license for advertising design, viewpoints on license were collected; the requests for professional knowledge in the industry were also understood (3) based on results of the viewpoints on license collected in the second stage, questionnaires were designed and used for determining the related viewpoints of the license holders in industry and academia as well as the requests for professional knowledge in the industry; (4) KJ-method is used to analyze the relations between important abilities and license certification of advertising design in the industry. The findings are described as follows: 1.The ability of both Grade B and C in the Advertising Design Technique Certification in sequence is: knowledge＞understanding＞application＞analysis＞integration＞criticism. 2.The first five factors considered in recruiting personnel in advertising design are: (1) professional knowledge and techniques (2) practical experience (3) cooperation (4) ability to do individual work (5) responsibility. 3.Required abilities in advertising design in the industry: (a)Professional knowledge: judgment and creativity of work. (b)Design implementation: color planning and application, integration of pictures and scripts, and poster design. (c)Computer software operation: Illustrator, Photoshop. (d)Work attitude and ethics: independent operation, problem solving, and career dedication. 4.There is low or no correlation between ability reflected from the test in Grade C of the Advertising Design Technique Certification and required professional knowledge in industry; there is middle or low correlation between ability reflected from the test in Grade B of the Advertising Design Technique Certification and required professional knowledge in industry. 5.The management of the industry, the examinees of Grade B and C in Advertising Design Technique Certification all believed that “the technique of technician meets the real requirements of industry and the license holder will be recruited in advance by the industry” is not true at all.

Le jeu casual est un phénomène majeur de l’industrie vidéoludique, pourtant il reste peu étudié et mal considéré. Les quelques définitions scientifiques recensées présentent des divergences importantes, ainsi qu’un décalage par rapport aux jeux produits. Les modèles théoriques en design de jeu, centrés sur le gameplay, semblent inadéquats face à ce phénomène. En utilisant le modèle du praticien réflexif de Donald Schön, l’objectif de notre recherche est d’apporter un nouvel éclairage sur le jeu casual grâce au savoir professionnel des designers de jeux. Notre approche est qualitative, d’inspiration phénoménologique : nous avons recueilli l’expérience de huit designers de jeux par l’intermédiaire d’entretiens semi-dirigés proches du récit de pratique. Nos résultats montrent que les concepts utilisés dans les modèles vidéoludiques traditionnels restent pertinents pour définir le jeu casual, mais demandent à être retravaillés afin de rendre compte des mutations de l’expérience de jeu. Ainsi, un challenge dans un jeu casual n’est pas un obstacle mais une opportunité d’action pour le joueur. De plus, la progression se fait par la variation des challenges plutôt que par l’augmentation de la difficulté. Ensuite, certains concepts qui semblaient pertinents pour définir les jeux casual, tels que la fiction positive, ont été rejetés par nos participants. Enfin, notre étude a permis de rassembler des informations sur le rôle du designer de jeu casual et le contexte dans lequel il exerce, ce qui permet d’expliquer certaines causes de la vision péjorative du jeu casual.
Casual games are one of the main phenomena in the video game industry, but remain under-explored and are not highly regarded. Scientific definitions are scarce, inconsistent, and often disconnected from actual games. Further, theoretical models for game design, centered on gameplay, often fall short in defining casual games. The objective of this study is to use Donald Schön's model of the reflective practitioner to shed a new light on casual games through the collection of professional knowledge of game designers. This study follows a qualitative approach with phenomenological inspiration. Eight one-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with casual game designers who were asked to provide a narrative of their professional practice. Results show that traditional game design concepts remain relevant for understanding and defining casual games, but need to be reworked in the light of new experiences and contexts in gaming. Namely, challenge is no longer synonymous with obstacle, but should be considered as an opportunity of a player’s action. Progression should be based on the variation of challenges instead of increasing difficulty. In addition, participants rejected some concepts that were previously considered appropriate for defining casual games, like positive fiction. Finally, this study provides insight into the role of casual game designers and the context of their work, which can help explain the often negative perception of casual games.

In this knowledge economy, organizations are leveraging their competence through the knowledge they possess. Managing knowledge will potentially retain the competence held by the organization if knowledge generated across its projects and units is captured, structured and reused. Even though many tools and techniques are proposed in the literature to support these activities, their adoption in industry has been meagre. This may be due to development of tools without basing them on substantial and careful descriptive studies. This raises the following research issues: the knowledge processes and knowledge sources available in organizations and their characteristics need to be understood better. To address these gaps, following objectives are addressed in this research: ♦ To understand the specific needs and capability of the organization for capture and reuse of product development knowledge and ♦ To evaluate various alternative supports for capture and structure of relevant, evolving product development knowledge for reuse. To address these objectives, two observational studies were conducted in the organizations. To get a broader picture about the knowledge processes occurring in the organization, a KRIT model is proposed which is an acronym for Knowledge of solutions-Requirements-Interactions-Tasks, in which interactions of the designers with people and tools play the central role in processing knowledge during design. The KRIT model is validated through the demonstration of the existence of its nodes and links. From the observations it has been found that interactions ‘designer working with computer’, ‘two designers working with a computer’ and ‘two designers interacting with each other’ are most frequently occurred, and occupied most of the time during designing. Any tools to support knowledge capture and reuse should support these interactions such that capture and reuse can be intuitive and in-built in a natural way into a designer’s work habits. It is emphasized that there is a substantial need to increase the percentage of time spent by designers on capturing knowledge during the design process. This increase in time would lead to decrease in a designers’ time spent on knowledge acquisition and dissemination provided designers are capturing reusable knowledge. To answer capture and reuse of knowledge in detail in the observational studies, a new taxonomy of knowledge is proposed. By linking the representations of argumentation, designer’s activities, and the artefact being designed, we argued that the expressiveness of this taxonomy is high compared to the others proposed in the literature. The taxonomy has three broad categories of knowledge: topics, classes, and activities. Based on the definitions of the factors used in the taxonomy and the analysis of the protocols, the factors in each group under each category are argued to be mutually exclusive. In order to study the links between the proposed categories and factors in the taxonomy of knowledge, a method for converting the questions and answers (from the protocol data) into a generic format is framed. The taxonomy is validated comprehensively, and is able to cover various stages of design. Most of the designers’ time was spent working with a CAD package, in which most of the kinds of knowledge mentioned in the proposed taxonomy of knowledge was neither captured not reused. The important observations noted by comparing the knowledge captured in the preliminary study and the main study are as follows: Compared to the preliminary study, process related information and knowledge are captured higher in the main study. In the main study behavioural related content is captured more; whereas in the preliminary study structural content is captured more. The factors organization, usage, maintenance and sales captured in the preliminary study are not at all captured in the main study. In order to assess the usefulness of the knowledge captured, the kinds of knowledge needs of designers were compared with the kinds of knowledge captured. The important observations about the knowledge needs are: Irrespective of the design stages, in almost 50% of the questions, designers interacted with others to know about old issues or proposals in both the studies. A designer’s time for designing would benefit considerably if the answers for these 50% of the old questions were captured and made available for retrieval in formal documents. In both the studies, proposals based questions played a vital role in the questions analyzed. It shows that considerable proportion of time was spent by the designers on validating, by asking questions, the answers known to them. In contrast to the preliminary study, the designers’ needs for process-related information or knowledge were much higher than that for product-related information or knowledge. Comparing the generic questions obtained from the knowledge needs and knowledge captured reveals that only 14% and 26% with product related content and only 10% and 11.3% of the process based content asked by designers during designing were captured in the preliminary and the main study. These results show that there is a mismatch between knowledge captured and knowledge needed by the designers. This may be one of the primary reasons for the poor usage of documents in the organization. The generic questions generated from the questions asked by the designers and various documents will act as a guideline to the designers for what knowledge and information should and should not to be captured. Due to restrictions in the observations, a questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve the objective to collect 10% of total number of employees’ perspectives about the issues considered in this research. The important observations from the analyses of the collected questionnaire are: Designers’ perceive all types of interactions as important and frequent for information generation and sharing. These results are contradictory to the personal observations in which only interactions ‘designer working with computer’ and ‘two designers working with a computer’ occurred frequently. This shows that designers are unable to identify the kinds of interaction which they perform in their daily activities. Due to this, the information processes occurring within these interactions are not perceptible to the designers. Designers perceive that they get the right information at the right time in only 4 or more out of 10 for most of the times. This perception illustrates there is substantial need for the development of support to satisfy the information needs of designers. Analyses of the types of questions reveal that the question asking behavior of the designers is not static; the major share of questions falling under the category ‘question from answer given’ could be interpreted as: designers often do not frame exact questions to fulfil their requirements; they grab the opportunity to take as much as knowledge as possible during an interaction. Analyses of the types of answers reveal that designers gave more inferences on their answers in order to give a better response, which in turn should help reduce the number of questions subsequently asked especially in the protocol coded as ‘new answer’. Two studies have been used to assess the effectiveness of seven tools for supporting knowledge capture and reuse. The important observations from the initial study are: Mobile E-Notes TakerTM is ranked higher because this equipment provides a blend of properties between the paper and computer. These observations stress the importance of features provided for knowledge generation, modification, capture and reuse in the system. The observations from analyzing the three top rated tools (Mobile E-Notes TakerTM, Tablet with viewing facility and Computer with RhinocerosTM CAD package) to understand influence of these tools on knowledge capture and reuse during conceptual designing are: The differences observed in the percentage of capture between the usage of the three tools demonstrate that tools have an influence on the knowledge capture activity. Even though none of the three tools capture adequate knowledge during designing, Mobile e-Notes TakerTM seems to be the best tool for capture compared to the other two tools, both in the original and redesign experiments. These results suggest that some other mechanisms should be added to these tools so that their effectiveness of capturing could be increased. One mechanism is to incorporate the proposed KRIT model and the taxonomy of knowledge during designing. This integration will be one of the good mechanisms to aid knowledge capture and reuse, because the knowledge capture will occur along with the knowledge creation process. We believe that through this integration the purpose to enhance the knowledge capture and reuse during the design process will be achieved.

The research is conducted in the area of Software Engineering, with emphasis on the design phase of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The object-oriented paradigm is the point of departure. The investigation deals with the problem of creating support for the design phase of object-oriented system development. This support must be able to guide the system designer through the design process, according to a sound design method, highlight opportunities for prototyping and point out where to re-iterate a design step, for example. A solution is proposed in the form of a knowledge-based support system. In the prototype this support guides a designer partially through the first step of the System Design task for object-oriented design. The intention is that the knowledge-based system should capture the know-how of an expert system designer and assist an inexperienced system designer to create good designs.
Computing
M. Sc. (Information Systems)