Researchers with an interest in design tools/methods, industrial/product design, design management and design education might be interested in a new design tool that includes a taxonomy of design representations. The tool is one of the outcomes from a Loughborough Design School PhD that was followed by post doctoral design and development. The PhD was undertaken by Dr Eujin Pei and supervised by Dr Ian Campbell and myself. Post doctoral work was by myself and Eujin.
iD Cards have been produced as a credit card size tool that folds out to A3 and provides a name, example, and description for the 32 key design representations used during new product development (NPD). They indicate the stages of NPD when the design representations are most commonly used and if they communicate types of design information or technical information. They are grouped into 4 categories (sketches, drawings, models and prototypes) using a generic classification that does not distinguish between techniques that are digital, non digital, or hybrid.
The physical cards have been distributed throughout the UK and will be launched by the Industrial Designers Society of America (a collaborator on the project) at their district conferences in April and international conference in September. The tool has been well received by students, practitioners and academics and a modified PDF version has been created to enable wider dissemination. If you would like to see or use the iD Cards system, the PDF is available from the Design Practice Research Group page of the Loughborough Design School web site at:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/lds//research/groups/design-practice/
Having already distributed 10000 iD Cards, stocks of the physical tool are now limited. However, if any researchers or industrial design/engineering design educators would like to receive an iD Card, please send me a small self addressed envelope (no return stamp required) and a business card before the end of April 2011 and I will forward one to you (while stocks last!).
Further information on the PhD and taxonomy can be found in a recent CoDesign paper (Pei, E., Campbell, R.I. and Evans, M.A., ''Development of a tool for building shared representations among industrial designers and engineering design'', CoDesign Journal, 63, 2010, p139-166). There will also be a related paper in the forthcoming issue (Volume 14 Issue 1) of the Design Journal (Pei, E., Campbell, R.I. and Evans, M.A., “A taxonomic classification of visual design representations used by industrial designers and engineering designers”).
I hope that the PhD design research community finds this work of interest.
Mark
Dr Mark Evans
Loughborough Design School
Loughborough
Leicestershire LE11 3TU
United Kingdom
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