Resolving Wicked Problems: Appositional Reasoning and Sketch Representation

Abstract The influence of a design education upon reasoning in response to ill-defined design problems was examined through a comparative protocol study of design and non-design students. A statistical analysis compared distributions of and transitions between the activities naming, framing, moving, and reflecting. Design student protocols were characterized by significantly increased activity associated with reasoning between problem definition and solution ideation. In contrast, participants lacking any formal design education or experience indicated significantly increased reasoning towards problem definition, with little evidence of ideation. A subsequent qualitative comparison identifies sketching as a potential driver for both increased solution-focused activity and greater iteration between problem definition and solution ideation. Implications for design ability, sketching and appositional bridge-building between problem definition and solution ideation are discussed.

[1]  Kees Dorst,et al.  Analysing design activity: new directions in protocol analysis , 1995 .

[2]  Basil Brink,et al.  Creativity in the Design Process , 2012 .

[3]  H. Rittel,et al.  Dilemmas in a general theory of planning , 1973 .

[4]  Erik Stolterman,et al.  Design Judgement: Decision-Making in the ‘Real’ World , 2003 .

[5]  Gabriela Goldschmidt,et al.  Capturing indeterminism: representation in the design problem space , 1997 .

[6]  Bruce Archer,et al.  Design as a discipline , 1979 .

[7]  Nigel Cross,et al.  Creativity in the design process: co-evolution of problem–solution , 2001 .

[8]  Kees Dorst,et al.  Comparing paradigms for describing design activity , 1995 .

[9]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  On the reliability of identifying design moves in protocol analysis , 2013 .

[10]  Kah-Hin Chai,et al.  Understanding design research: A bibliometric analysis of Design Studies (1996–2010) , 2012 .

[11]  Ralf Michel,et al.  Design Research Now , 2007 .

[12]  Raymond A. Dixon,et al.  Selected Core Thinking Skills and Cognitive Strategy of an Expert and Novice Engineer. , 2011 .

[13]  James Self,et al.  Implications for an Understanding of Design Practice , 2013 .

[14]  Masaki Suwa,et al.  Macroscopic analysis of design processes based on a scheme for coding designers' cognitive actions , 1998 .

[15]  Hernan Casakin,et al.  Visual analogy as a cognitive strategy in the design process. Expert versus novice performance , 2004 .

[16]  Kees Dorst,et al.  The core of ‘design thinking’ and its application , 2011 .

[17]  Tua Björklund,et al.  Initial mental representations of design problems: Differences between experts and novices , 2013 .

[18]  M. Prescott.  The Three Rs , 2017 .

[19]  John S. Gero,et al.  The structure of concurrent cognitive actions: a case study on novice and expert designers , 2002 .

[20]  Victoria Hoban,et al.  The Reflective Practitioner , 2013 .

[21]  Claudia Baier,et al.  Analysing Design Activity , 2016 .

[22]  D. Schoen.  The Reflective Practitioner , 1983 .

[23]  D. Schoen.  Educating the reflective practitioner , 1987 .

[24]  N. Cross.  The Nature and Nurture of Design Ability , 1990 .

[25]  Willemien Visser,et al.  The Cognitive Artifacts of Designing , 2006 .

[26]  N. Cross,et al.  Design Expertise Amongst Student Designers , 1994 .

[27]  Nfm Roozenburg,et al.  On the pattern of reasoning in innovative design , 1993 .

[28]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  Kinds of seeing and their functions in designing , 1992 .

[29]  Eujin Pei,et al.  A Taxonomic Classification of Visual Design Representations Used by Industrial Designers and Engineering Designers , 2011 .