Creative Design Solutions Research Articles

Use of Value Engineering to Develop Creative Design Solutions for Marine Construction Projects

This paper examines the potential of value engineering (VE) as a problem-solving tool for addressing various challenges in the marine construction industry. Through a review of large numbers of challenging engineering problems in the marine environment, the authors identified various complications caused by dynamic and uncertain marine environments in both the prebid and postbid stages of construction projects. These unexpected challenges required the project team to identify optimal solutions in a comprehensive and efficient manner. In past construction projects, a 10-step approach was designed and used by the authors to identify solutions for unexpected engineering problems. The approach has three limitations: (1) it is an informal and time-consuming process involving possibly redundant communications and coordination; (2) it is not specific and detailed enough to ensure that the optimal solution is in fact considered and selected in a comprehensive and efficient manner; and (3) it does not integrate standard metrics other than the estimated cost that can be used to quantitatively evaluate the performance of a solution in terms of productivity, quality, safety, and environmental impact. This paper first presents the current 10-step process for solving marine construction problems and limitations of this process. The paper then describes the VE seven-step process and highlights how the VE process and the 10-step approach share the same structure. All steps in the VE process can find correspondences in the 10-step process, whereas VE methodology formalizes the value of a solution and quantitative performance metrics to harvest and evaluate ideas from groups of engineers in a more systematic manner. Based on this shared structure, the paper discusses how to augment the 10-step approach with the VE methodology to achieve more comprehensive and efficient problem solving. Using a case study, the authors explain how such augmentation can effectively integrate the knowledge and experience of groups of engineers with diverse backgrounds in marine construction. Finally, the paper suggests future directions for using VE for marine construction projects.

Intuitive interaction with multifunctional mobile interfaces

This paper investigates intuitive interaction in the context of mobile phones. The aim is to identify what creates an intuitive interaction with an interface and therefore analyse how features may be designed to maximise the probability of an intuitive interaction. Three experimental studies were conducted. The first study recorded participants’ interaction with unmarked mobile phone button schematics with the aim of relating intuitiveness of interaction to the gestalt laws. It was demonstrated that intuitive interaction is facilitated when interfaces have layouts designed using the gestalt laws. The second study compared interactions using touchscreen and button phones to evaluate the significance of the touchscreen. It was found that participants who had never owned a touchscreen handset were still inclined to utilise the experiential knowledge of existing handsets for all of the tasks performed. The final study used the Immersion® CyberGlove® to record participants’ interactions with a prop in place of a touchscreen phone when carrying out various tasks. The aim was to determine which image schemata were prevalent in the use of a touchscreen handset. Six image schemata were identified, and it was concluded that these image schemata could improve the efficiency of inclusive design if taken into account. This research suggests that individual image schemata can be related to the continuum of knowledge sources in order to create design solutions that take advantage of the user’s basic sensorimotor experience.

New visual languages supporting design of multi-storey buildings

This paper deals with designing multi-storey buildings with the use of a knowledge-based visual design support system. In this system two visual languages for creating design solutions by the designer are proposed. The first one allows the designer to design 2D floor layouts, while the second one is dedicated to creating 3D building structures. The generated design solutions in the form of drawings are internally represented as hierarchical hypergraphs gathering design knowledge on which reasoning about designs can be based. The approach is illustrated by example of designing a three-storey house.

A Study of Product Family Rapid Design Based on Modularization and Parameterization for Transportation Equipment

This study presents a novel approach for configuring the product assembly model in order to rapid design a product family of transportation equipment. The proposed methodology is divided into three phases: namely modular partition phase, product structure configuration phase, and parametric correlation phase. In the modular partition phase, building the incidence matrix through correlation analysis of components under functional, geometric and physical domains, and on this basis, building the similarity matrix and re-aggregating the components into modules by cluster method in fuzzy mathematics. In second phase, a family-oriented product design framework is proposed based on the modular partition results to help designers to concurrently create design solutions. In the last phase, communicating of the module and design framework based on the flow of design parameters information, three types of parameters association and transmission are clarified. The methodology proposed here is illustrated via the example of the design of a screw conveyor.

Creativity, Decision Making, and Evidence-Based Design

Some design practitioners apparently worry that adopting an evidence-based practice model might reduce their opportunities for creative design solutions. Reactance theory (Brehm & Brehm, 1981) tells us that when persons are threatened with a loss of control, they will resist the imposition. Because on the surface it seems difficult to object to the idea of basing design decisions on the best available information to improve their quality (Stichler & Hamilton, 2008), I ask whether the negative reaction to evidence-based design on the part of some is a reactance behavior. If a designer expects to lose control or creative freedom over design decisions, it is understandable that there might be a strong expression of concern. I must ask whether such concern is justified.What Is Creativity in Healthcare Design?Architects and designers are taught to be arbiters of the public taste for aesthetics, at least where the built environment is concerned. For an architect, creativity is bound up in the decisions made in the process of imagining a building that does not yet exist and working to make this intellectual creation a reality. This creativity can be expressed in aesthetic judgment; the introduction of new and novel concepts; innovations in planning or the execution of construction; new or fresh ideas; and new combinations of materials, concepts, and building elements. Design professionals make countless decisions during the process, which affect beauty, comfort, human interaction, and human performance.Managing change, creativity and innovation is central to the repositioning of organizations in the uptake of new technologies and new techniques, to business developments in the provision of new products and services, and to the formulation and implementation of strategies to secure competitive advantage (Andriopoulos & Dawson, 2009, p. 4).Architects are change agents in service to their clients. Many would define their role as fostering innovation, and it could be argued that creativity is required to produce innovation. Architecture has always been both an art and a science, and every architect cherishes the part of his or her work that represents an artist's creativity. This is why any apparent reduction in creativity or design freedom will be resented or attacked. It is my contention, however, that an evidence-based process does not diminish the creative opportunities in projects.Change, creativity, invention, and innovation. Design professionals often use terms with a tendency to interchange their meanings. I think distinctions can be made. There are few-if any-common definitions of terms that might rise to the level of broad consensus. The interactions among concepts are many and complex. According to Andriopoulos and Dawson, these processes of change, creativity, and innovation overlap and interlock (2009, p. 7). In the interest of developing common definitions that may be useful in developing scholarly precision, Table 1 offers a simple and personal analysis of the differences among terms.What Types of Decisions Do Designers Make?If architecture is an art and a science, then both types of decisions must be expected. Aesthetic decisions may be contrasted with functional decisions. One could describe decisions as objective or subjective, rational or arbitrary. These characterizations seem to describe opposites or extremes on the continuum of decision making. Must it always be one or the other? Can we have decisions that address both poles?Barry Johnson (1996) has written about polarity management, in which the either/or can be replaced by a both/and model. One of his examples is breathing: if one decided that breathing in oxygen is wonderful and resolved to do it exclusively, one would soon be overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning. The only solution is to breathe out, and if that were now the only action undertaken, one would die of oxygen depletion. …

The Mood Board Process Modeled and Understood as a Qualitative Design Research Tool

Mood boards are fundamental tools used in design industries. The term mood board is often used generically to cover a wide range of board types, each having specific uses. The types of boards considered to be a vital part of the design process that facilitate creative and innovative thinking and application, as opposed to those associated with marketing to merely present and communicate product to an audience, are the focus of this study. The creation of mood boards involves a recognizable process coupled with creativity. The creative process used to develop mood boards can be seen to have three fundamental stages that offer the creator opportunities for deep levels of engagement to take place in order to develop creative and innovative design solutions. This study explores and models this process uncovering the underlying principles in relation to working methodologies and problem-solving theories. Further system models conceptualize the working methodologies of thirteen individuals in case studies using observation techniques and think-aloud methods. An evaluation of the participants’ levels of engagement with the process stages enriches the analysis, drawing conclusions for best practice approaches to the task and the understanding of mood boards as qualitative research tools.

APPROACHES THAT HELP STUDENTS GENERATE NEW DESIGN SOLUTIONS

Recently a new design methodology, Environment-Based Design (EBD) [1, 2] has been developed. In using the model of EBD, three elements are important: primitive synthesis knowledge, primitive environment and primitive solutions. Based on the three elements, three design strategies have been validated in [3] for generating new design solutions: formulating design problems differently, changing the sequence of decomposition of the design problem and extending synthesis knowledge. Increasing the possibilities of generating new design solutions may increase the chance of getting creative design solutions. Thus the three strategies for leading to new design solutions can be introduced into our engineering design education for helping and inspiring students generate creative design solutions. In this paper, we will first briefly introduce EBD model and the three design strategies leading to new design solutions, then explain how EBD can be integrated into the design education of engineering students and elaborate how the design strategies can be used to help students generate different design solutions.

Measuring Creativity: A Case Study Probing Rubric Effectiveness for Evaluation of Project-Based Learning Solutions

This research investigation focused upon whether creativity in project outcomes can be consistently measured through assessment tools, such as rubrics. Our case study research involved student-development of landscape design solutions for the Tennessee Williams Visitors Center. Junior and senior level undergraduates (N = 40) in landscape architecture design classes were assigned into equitable groups (n = 11) by an educational psychologist. Groups were subsequently assigned into either a literary narrative or abstract treatment classroom. We investigated whether student groups who were guided in their project development with abstract treatments were more likely to produce creative abstract design solutions when compared to those student groups who were guided with literary narrative interpretations. Final design solutions were presented before an audience and a panel of jurors (n = 9), who determined the outstanding project solutions through the use of a rubric, custom-designed to assess the project outcomes. Although our assumption was that the measurement of the creativity of groups’ designs would be consistent through the use of the rubric, we uncovered some discrepancies between rubric score sheets and jurors’ top choices. We subjected jurors’ score sheets and results to a thorough analysis, and four persistent themes emerged: 1) Most jurors did not fully understand the rubric’s use, including the difference between dichotomous categories and scored topics; 2) Jurors were in agreement that 6 of the 11 projects scored were outstanding submissions; 3) Jurors who had directly worked with a classroom were more likely to score that class’ groups higher; and 4) Most jurors, with the exception of two raters, scored the abstract treatment group projects as higher and more creative. We propose that while the rubric appeared to be effective in assessing creative solutions, a more thorough introduction to its use is warranted for jurors. More research is also needed as to whether prior interaction with student groups influences juror ratings.

Construction Engineering Process and Knowledge Requirements for Fostering Creative Design Solutions on Infrastructure Projects

Construction engineering for major infrastructure projects covers a wide range of activities to evaluate and select the techniques for assembling materials and components. Construction engineering inherently presents a very challenging opportunity for creative design, particularly on infrastructure projects. This construction engineering activity can be described as one of creating and developing workable, cost-effective, low-risk technical solutions for an array of infrastructure construction problems that must be solved from the plans and specifications stage through facility completion. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a 10-step construction engineering process and define important knowledge requirements to foster creative design solutions using four case studies, including (1) positioning and holding a concrete bridge caisson in a 7-knot tidal current for a 4-month period; (2) skidding a 55,000-t immersed tube tunnel element 200 m on dry land from casting site to launch site; (3) building a ...

Cognitive effectiveness of visual instructional design languages

The introduction of learning technologies into education is making the design of courses and instructional materials an increasingly complex task. Instructional design languages are identified as conceptual tools for achieving more standardized and, at the same time, more creative design solutions, as well as enhancing communication and transparency in the design process. In this article we discuss differences in cognitive aspects of three visual instructional design languages (E 2ML, PoEML, coUML), based on user evaluation. Cognitive aspects are of relevance for learning a design language, creating models with it, and understanding models created using it. The findings should enable language constructors to improve the usability of visual instructional design languages in the future. The paper concludes with directions with regard to how future research on visual instructional design languages could strengthen their value and enhance their actual use by educators and designers by synthesizing existing efforts into a unified modeling approach for VIDLs.

Modeling Concurrent Design Method for Product Variety

This study presents a systematic method for concurrently developing the product variety. The proposed method integrates three approaches successively. First, the quality function deployment approach identifies the external driven factors of design variation. Second, the quantified design structure matrix technique is proposed to identify the internal interactions and build the hierarchy of components interactions within a product. Third, the morphology analysis approach is applied to visualize the concepts of the developing product through creating design solutions for every component and module. This approach represents the design priority and related design constrains using a structural graph for helping designers to create design solutions in a product design for variety. A case study is employed to illustrate this method and the result validates the feasibility and effectiveness.

Privacy and Social Interaction in Traditional Towns to Contemporary Urban Design in Iran

Privacy as an inherent feature of Iranian culture i s evident in formation of Iranian traditional towns. Put differently, attention to the inside was one of the most desirable principles in Iranian traditional architecture as well as urbanism. Howev er, privacy did not lead to isolation in Iranian culture and social contact was also of a great impo rtance to Iranians. Problem statement: Although sense of privacy as well as sociality are still par ts of Iranian culture and have been transferred fro m one generation to another, contemporary cities do not m eet these needs. Newly designed cities have encountered a decrease in sense of privacy and soci al interaction among residents. Approach: Coming up with an alternative solution for urban design wh ich would respect this culture in cotemporary citie s while matching the new life style of people, would contribute to achieving a sustainable urban form one of the principles of which is social and cultur al sustainability. This article, therefore, aimed t o reveal how the traditional urban form considered re sident's needs of privacy as well as social interaction simultaneously and how to regenerate se nse of privacy and social contact in the contemporary neighborhoods in Iran. The method used in this study was analysis of data gathered through library study. Results: This study suggested that the existence of transiti onal spaces in traditional cities was the main reason for simultan eous generation of privacy and social interaction, thus, a contemporized form of those spaces in conte mporary residential areas might help in increasing the aforementioned attitudes in contemporary cities . Conclusion: This study has an important implication for those involved in development of ne w neighborhoods. It would be hoped that this study triggers creative future design solutions that woul d consider the socio-cultural issues in designing a s well as planning processes.

Creative Design Solutions as a Class Exercise

This article describes a case study I use as a hands-on design assignment in a human factors psychology course. The assignment is to redesign an exit sign, taking into account principles of visual display design and environmental factors that could reduce the sign's visibility. Assigning a particular object to redesign allows in-class comparison and discussion, and it is relatively easy for students when they begin to identify human factors deficiencies in everyday objects. Students consistently rate this assignment positively, and they especially enjoy its creative aspects.

創造的工学設計支援システムの構築 : 第2報,品質工学手法による創造的思考プロセスの評価(機械要素,潤滑,設計,生産加工,生産システムなど)

In recent years, industrial designers are required to design creative products in a short period of time. Attractive product is changed significantly by requirement definition and conceptual design phases. The Quality of product concepts, which is result of these phases, depend heavily on the creativity of designers or development teams. It is difficult that a computer-aided system supports a creative and inventive thinking process, and searches a creative design solution. To overcome these difficulties, authors developed a systematic approach of the creative and inventive thinking process called Creative and inventive Design Support System (CDSS). In this paper, its validity is examined by using to the Design of Experiments (DOE) and the Taguchi Method. From these evaluation results, it is confirmed that creative design solutions can be searched by using the creative and inventive thinking process of CDSS.

‘I Use Online so the Counsellors can't Hear Me Crying’: Creating Design Solutions for Online Counselling

This article reviews a project which has produced creative design solutions for the development of online counselling in collaboration with Australia's largest youth telephone counselling service, Kids Helpline (KHL). Our discussion focuses on the shape of interaction design research conducted against the dual background of young people's multi-literacies and professional counselling practice. Existing text-based communication tools already available for Kids Helpline's clients were integrated with graphical image-based tools, while engaging young people in problem-solving and empowerment during online counselling sessions. The paper considers the fashioning of a conducive design and interactive communication environment for distressed young people and the independent evaluation of the new site design. Preliminary results are that young people report a greater sense of control and comfort in their net-based interaction with a counsellor.

Intellectual property and confidentiality issues in senior design courses

Senior capstone design courses provide students the opportunity to develop their design skills and learn about the product development process. Student project teams, a number of which are industry-sponsored, often develop creative design solutions that result in the creation of intellectual property. When this occurs, who owns the intellectual property: the student, faculty advisors, industry sponsors, or academic institutions? The paper discusses how academic institutions, such as the Marquette University, deal with intellectual property and confidentiality issues in senior capstone design courses, in particular those that deal with biomedical engineering.

The need for a 'universal accessibility' engineering tool

The countries of the European Union generally want to enhance self-support for the elderly and disabled and consequently strive for accessibility of 'mainstream' Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for these inhabitants. The 'universal accessibility' approach is advocated as a possibility to include all user groups in the software development process.The European Union supports research in this area, for example by funding the project Assessing the Awareness of the Design for All Approach (AADAA consortium, 1998).However, the 'universal accessibility' approach is not as widely spread in the design community, as it should be. Several reasons have been identified. First, the phenomenon that 'universal accessibility' products are perceived as dull by the designers creates serious problems for the acceptance of the 'universal accessibility' paradigm. This might, however, be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Second, the cost of involving elderly and disabled users in software development can be higher than for involving the rest of the population. On the other hand, a broader perspective comprises also the advantages of the 'universal accessibility' approach: The involvement of elderly in the design process often results in better products for all kind of users so that the overall utility of this approach is high (Gleiss et al., 1995). Furthermore, the number of potential users of the 'universal accessible' product also increases so it might very well be a good investment. Third, the extra constraints on design possibilities are another objection. However, it could be that the constraints force the designers to be creative, bringing about new ideas that enrich the total design space (Newell & Gregor, 1997). In sum, the three problems of dullness, design costs and design constraints can be solved by evoking positive attitudes, widened cost-benefit analyses and creative design solutions. However, to realise 'universal accessibility', the corresponding human factors knowledge should be incorporated into the design practice. Currently, designers take insufficiently account of human-factors knowledge on elderly and disabled (Neerincx, 1998). This paper provides a cognitive engineering approach to solve this problem.

Development of a liquid-metal fusion reactor divertor with a capillary-pore system

The absence of a satisfactorily developed fusion reactor (FR) divertor approach (having no lost layers of sputtered plate materials and/or replaceable blocks) has become the reason for the development of the new concept of liquid-metal divertor (LMD) with a capillary-pore (CP) lithium protection system. Creative and novel design and material solutions, combined with unique natural thermophysical properties of Li working in a gas target evaporation—radiation mode, ensures the prolonged and steady performance of a FR divertor (D).

Designing Housing for the Future: An Interdisciplinary Approach

The project is a cooperative research endeavor involving an interdisciplinary effort to design homes to meet the needs of rural home owners. A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 1,600 Nebraska residents. Results received were analyzed to discover the needs and preferences of these residents with regard to the importance of design characteristics, in August 1986, a daylong workshop was held. The objectives of the workshop included a review of the housing survey results and the development of recommendations for the design of single family housing for the midwest region of the United States. Information gained from the survey and the symposium was then used as the basis of a design program. Teams of students in interior design and architecture used the program to create design solutions which represent housing that is adaptable to a wide variety of typical users.