Graduate Courses

Purpose:

To develop the students' self survey, team analysis and reflective ability in the design and to improve their expertise in design management.

Task:

It is required that graduate students can analyze activity characteristics based on data such as design thinking activities, and on this basis, identify (novice and expert) designer level;

could analysis and find differences between design patterns;

could analysis and find similarities and differences in design strategies.

About this course

1、Design activities and processes

Adams pointed out that design research cannot be separated from design knowledge and design strategy, and research on design activities should be the basis of design research, which including the study of the basic components of design activities. The design activity research will bring together various factors such as form, function, context conditions and available technologies, and combine the analysis and comparison methods in the design process to comprehensively capture and extract the designer's cognitive model.

2, Design expertise and design thinking

Everyone is more or less in possession of design capability,but a more professional definition is that design capability  is the ability to use solution-focused strategies, valid reasoning, or isomorphic reasoning to solve undefined problems.Nigel Cross proposes that the designer's design capabilities include the following: solving undefined problems; Applying the solution focused strategy;Using traceability/validity/topological thinking; Using non-verbal graphical/spatial modeling media.

3、Designerly ways of knowing

The conception of problems, the generation of solutions and the use of design process strategies determine the level of designer's cognition.Five aspects can reflect the characteristics of designers' cognition: "undefined problems" are the problems that designers need to solve; "Solution focus" is a designerly model for solving problems. "Creative" is a designerly way of thinking; "Coding" is the conversion between abstract requirements and figurative forms by designers. "Coding" is also designed to read and write, to transform the language of creation.Part of the problems arises at the same time as the solutions, the solution comes out when the problem is clear, or the solution comes out, and part of the problem becomes clear. As Richard says, "when you try to solve it, the problem becomes clear."

4、Design pattern

The mode of thinking is the most essential way to solve problems. Design thinking is a unique thinking mode of designers. Bryan Lawson et al. summarized that design thinking is composed of the interdependent activities of "imagination" and "reasoning", in which "imagination" is used for the promotion of design and tentatively determines what concepts are involved, while "reasoning" is used for design rationalization, namely, the preliminary  argument  determines "rational thinking"

5, Design strategy

Yilmaz found that designers often exploit potential design space, resulting in the creation of different and creative solutions that rely on "design heuristics." The term "heuristics" is already commonly referred to  design strategies, which make it easy to use information and guide problem solving. A designerly way, solution-driven design strategy; The differentiation analysis of the design strategy in expert and novice, the difference and advantage between the design strategy of width priority and narrowness priority.

Bibliography

1. Nigel Cross. Designer cognition. Trans. Ren wenyong et al., 1st edition, wuhan: Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press

2. Donald A. scheeren. Reflecting practitioners - How professionals think in action. Trans. Sharedin. 1st edition. Beijing: Education Science Press

3. Norman K. Dunjin, yvonne S. Lincoln. Qualitative research. Chongqing; Chongqing University Press, 2007

4. Cross N. Designerly ways of knowing. Design studies, 1982, 3(4): 221-227

5. Simon HA. Science of the Artificial. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967

6. Schön D. Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987
   

7. Cross N. The expertise of exceptional designers. In: N Cross & E Edmonds (Eds.). Expertise in design, Sydney, Australia: Creativity and Cognition Press, University of Technology, 2003

8. Dreyfus H L, Dreyfus S E. Mind Over Machine. Free Press, 1988

9. Dreyfus H. What computers still can’t do. New York: MIT Press, 1992

10. Lawson B, Dorst K H. Design expertise. Burlington, MA, USA: Elsevier Ltd, 2009

11. Dorst C H. Describing Design-A comparison of paradigms. 1997