Dear All,
Thank you for the inputs! I'm sorry I've been away from the list over the
past week. I've found most of the things you've pointed me towards useful at
first glance. I'll spend more time on them the coming week and share more.
Suzanna:
You make a very valid point about working in pairs. I agree with it
entirely. However, in my experience with design practice, often designers
(researchers) are forced to work alone in the face of unavailability of a
second resource, lack of investment in the research activity, etc. Thus, one
of the goals of my search is to find ways to make each student a little more
independent.
I use generative techniques too and I had tried incorporating them into this
course last year, but I found that it was not easy for the students to
understand and use these techniques. The result being that the group
exploring generative techniques produced disappointing results and
eventually switched to using more traditional techniques. Of course, the
course design and delivery might have played a big role in the unsuccessful
attempt. I'm still exploring this.
I'd love to connect with you once you're free again.
Charles:
Very interesting resource. I think you've said something really important
with "...to identify the relevance of information to particular goals and
needs...". How can we facilitate the identification and elaboration of
relevant information through prescriptive tools? This is what I feel most of
my students have a problem with, even before they approach the synthesis
stage. I'll have a look at the tools on the website and see what I can find.
Frederick:
Your experience with the students is very close to my own, so I appreciate
your understanding of the problem. I agree that looking at the abstract
mediation relationship opens up the design space, thus enabling divergent
solutions. I cite PP Verbeek's excellent reference exploring this. Though I
find that this would be more applicable as we move away from data collection
and further towards synthesis - unless I've missed something, in which case
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Mattias:
A reason I can think of for the tools to not drive new ideas could be that
the sheets seek to predominantly capture objective information (the facts).
Relating back to Alun's reference to the ORID framework, I think moving to
the Decision stage is important to begin with idea generation. The Decision
stage within ORID is very similar to what is called (in other framewoks) the
Design Intent or Vision in Product Design (ViP).
Thanks again all, my responses may display a certain level of
misinterpretation, thus my apologies. I'll have more time the coming week to
spend on this problem and hopefully offer clearer responses.
regards,
Soumitra
On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 4:37 AM, Charles Burnette <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Soumitra, Alun, Susana, Frederick, Mattias and others
>
> You might find the section on Teaching Tools and Techniques at
> http://www.idesignthinking.com useful as there are several tools there
> that have been used to teach design thinking to students at levels from
> K-12 to graduate. Think of how you would adapt the tools to your teaching
> goals. The Role Playing technique is a very effective teaching tool because
> it requires all participants to identify the relevance of information to
> particular goals and needs. The history of the technique is given in the
> paper A Role Oriented Approach to Problem Solving at
> http://www.independent. academia.edu/charlesburnette. Since it is based on
> the standard model for scientific disclosure it is adapted to scientific
> research as well as designing.
>
> I hope you will consider it.
>
> Charles Burnette, PhD, FAIA
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> On Jul 26, 2011, at 1:22 AM, Soumitra wrote:
>
> Thank you Alun,
>>
>> The ORID framework seems to be something that I can use to develop my
>> material. I would aim for having the note-taking tool take on the role of
>> the 'facilitator' part of an ORID session.
>>
>> regards,
>> Soumitra
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 11:29 AM, Alun Price <[log in to unmask]>**
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Soumitra
>>>
>>> For simple and effective techniques I tend to fall back on the ORID and
>>> SWOT questioning frameworks. They can both be used in a number of
>>> situations. ORID; Observation (what do you see, what are the details),
>>> Insights (how does it affect you, make you feel), Reflection (what do you
>>> think it means etc.), Decision (what will you do next). works well in
>>> framing sets of questions about a situation or a design that you're
>>> testing.
>>>
>>> Alun
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Soumitra" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Sent: Monday, 25 July, 2011 10:59:07 AM GMT +08:00 Beijing / Chongqing /
>>> Hong Kong / Urumqi
>>> Subject: Note-taking tools for Design Research
>>>
>>> Dear PhD-Design list members,
>>>
>>> I am about to teach a short 'Research for Design' course to undergrad
>>> students at a professional design education institute (not a university).
>>> This will probably be the first and only such course that they will
>>> follow
>>> in their UG program. I want to make it simple for them to effectively
>>> apply
>>> some techniques like observation and interviewing for their future
>>> projects.
>>> So far, my experience has been that the students are able to look at and
>>> hear many things within a situation, but have difficulty in seeing and
>>> listening to stimuli (focus and interpret) and transform them into
>>> insights
>>> for design. Personally, looking at my own process, I think notetaking
>>> forms
>>> a critical part of the research activity and it would be effective to
>>> focus
>>> on developing/collecting some tools that would help the students
>>> systematically take notes of their observations and interviews with the
>>> intention of extracting insights from them.
>>>
>>> I thought of note-taking methods with corresponding templates that I have
>>> seen earlier that are used by practitioners to prescribe and guide an
>>> ideal
>>> note-taing process. Some of these are:
>>>
>>> 1. Cornell Notes
>>> 2. 6-up and 1-up templates from AdaptivePath? (
>>>
>>> http://www.boxuk.com/blog/**using-sketchboards-to-design-**
>>> great-user-interfaces<http://www.boxuk.com/blog/using-sketchboards-to-design-great-user-interfaces>
>>> )
>>> [not exactly note-taking, but similar]
>>> 3. The notepads used by McKinsey and BCG that have a grid on one side and
>>> a
>>> powerpoint slide on the other... (haven't been able to locate a link to
>>> a
>>> picture)
>>>
>>> Can you point me to some more examples and/or share some of your own
>>> expreriences and tools?
>>>
>>> Thanks and regards,
>>> Soumitra
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Soumitra Bhat, MSc.
>>> Director - UserINNOV Design Co.
>>> www.userinnov.com
>>>
>>>
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