Abstract
The conventional prescriptive and descriptive models of design typically decompose the overall design process into elementary processes, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. This study revisits some of the assumptions established by these models and investigates whether they can also be applied for modelling of problem-solution co-evolution patterns that appear during team conceptual design activities. The first set of assumptions concerns the relationship between performing analysis, synthesis, and evaluation and exploring the problem and solution space. The second set concerns the dominant sequences of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, whereas the third set concerns the nature of transitions between the problem and solution space. The assumptions were empirically tested as part of a protocol analysis study of team ideation and concept review activities. Besides revealing inconsistencies in how analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are defined and interpreted across the literature, the study demonstrates co-evolution patterns, which cannot be described by the conventional models. It highlights the important role of analysis-synthesis cycles during both divergent and convergent activities, which is co-evolution and refinement, respectively. The findings are summarised in the form of a model of the increase in the number of new problem and solution entities as the conceptual design phase progresses, with implications for both design research and design education.
Highlights
Ever since the 1960s, the design process has been dominantly prescribed within the context of the problem-solving paradigm
By revisiting some of the well-established assumptions on the nature of the design process in the context of designing in teams, the study provides a new perspective on ASE processes and their role in problem-solution co-evolution
The study has revealed inconsistencies in how analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are defined and interpreted across the literature and demonstrated that these three fundamental processes are critical for the exploration of both the problem and the solution space
Summary
Ever since the 1960s, the design process has been dominantly prescribed within the context of the problem-solving paradigm. The initial efforts of the design methods movement [1] utilised linear and high-level depictions of the design process, the most common being the analysis-synthesis-evaluation (ASE) sequence as part of a general problem-solving cycle (see, e.g., [2,3,4] for the initial developments of ASE-based models). The work of Herbert Simon [5] further strengthened the paradigm by laying down the scientific foundations of designing as a problem-solving activity [6,7]. The systematic approach prescribes designers with a simple and linear process that can be applied at various points of the engineering design process: To collect a sufficient amount of information, to confront the problem
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