Unexpected discoveries and S-invention of design requirements: important vehicles for a design process

doi:10.1016/S0142-694X(99)00034-4

Design Studies

Volume 21, Issue 6, November 2000, Pages 539-567

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0142-694X(99)00034-4 Get rights and content

Abstract

Designers, during a conceptual design process, do not just synthesize solutions that satisfy initially given requirements, but also invent design issues or requirements that capture important aspects of the given problem. How do they do this? What becomes the impetus for the invention of important issues or requirements? So-called `unexpected discoveries', the acts of attending to visuo-spatial features in sketches which were not intended when they were drawn, are believed to contribute to it. The purpose of the present research is to verify this hypothesis. Analysing the cognitive processes of a practising architect in a design session, we found that in about a half of his entire design process there were bi-directional relations between unexpected discoveries and the invention of issues or requirements. Not only did unexpected discoveries become the driving force for the invention of issues or requirements, but also the occurrence of invention, in turn, tended to cause new unexpected discoveries. This has provided empirical evidence for two anecdotal views of designing. First, designing is a situated act; designers invent design issues or requirements in a way situated in the environment in which they design. We call inventions of this sort situated-invention (S-invention). Secondly, a design process progresses in such a way that the problem-space and the solution-space co-evolve. Further, this has brought a pedagogical implication as well as an insight about an important aspect of learning by experience in design.

Section snippets

Our approach

We have looked into the cognitive processes of a practising architect using the technique of protocol analysis. The protocols of his design session were collected as a retrospective report after the session[10]. The design session, which lasted for 45 min, was to work on the conceptual design of a museum on a given site in a natural environment in the suburb of a large city. The architect was encouraged to draw sketches on tracing paper. His sketching activities were videotaped. In the report

Coding scheme: overview

The main thrust of our coding scheme is that it allows for codings of different modes of designers' cognitive actions from protocols. The definitions and codings of both unexpected discoveries and goals as S-invention are derived from this scheme. First, we will give a brief overview of the scheme.

Coding of unexpected discoveries and goals

The entire protocol of our architect contained 340 segments. For each segment, we identified and coded instances of unexpected discoveries and goals. The entire protocol contained 608 perceptual actions, out of which 173 were unexpected discoveries. The fact that a significant portion of the perceptual actions, 28.5%, belonged to unexpected discoveries clearly shows its importance in the design process of our architect. Out of the 173 instances of unexpected discoveries, 38 belonged to the

Interpretation

How do we interpret these results? In about a half of the entire design process of our architect, i.e. 52%, we found meaningful relations between the occurrences of unexpected discoveries and goals as S-invention except knowledge-derived ones. The relationship was twofold: First, when at least one unexpected discovery has occurred at a segment, an instance of those goals is likely to occur at the next segment, although this tendency was not extremely strong. Secondly, when at least one instance

Co-evolution of problem-space and solution-space

As we discussed in the Introduction, the S-invention of design issues or requirements means to find important aspects of the given problem. At the outset of a design process, it is still unknown what problems and issues the designer is going to come across and solve. Put differently, every time a designer invents a design issue or requirement, the design problem which he or she is working on becomes clearer than before the invention, and at the same time the problem-space which he or she is in

Conclusion

The aim of this research was to verify the hypothesis that unexpected discoveries may become the impetus for the invention of design issues or requirements, seeking empirical evidence through protocol analysis. First, we defined unexpected discoveries as a class of perceptual actions; actions of attending to visuo-spatial features of previously drawn elements. Then, we assumed that four types of design goals are the instances of the S-invention of issues or requirements; goals derived from

Acknowledgements

This research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, Grant Number A89601894. The concepts in this paper were initially presented at the Fourth International Conference on Computational Models of Creative Design. We are grateful to Gabriela Goldschmidt for insightful comments on the first manuscript of the present paper.

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