A descriptive design methodology to support designers

Ng, Kok 2011. A descriptive design methodology to support designers. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

An engineering design methodology helps designers to design in a systematic way. Based on the findings from a literature review, engineering design methodologies can be categorised into three types: prescriptive, descriptive and normative. Most established design methodologies are of the prescriptive type and they are based on step-oriented models. However, designers in industry are not found to be too keen on using any of these design methodologies. Among the reasons for not adopting these methodologies are that the prescriptive and normative design methodologies were found to be influencing the design strategies and approaches of a designer while the descriptive types were mostly used to study the design process. Though designers have their own design strategies and approaches, they also need design support. The descriptive type will not interfere with the designer’s strategies but they do suffer from a lack of structure in supporting designers. The goal of this research is to derive a design methodology framework to support designers without influencing their design approaches and strategies. A descriptive design methodology framework to support designers is proposed in this research work. This framework was derived based on four aspects: a descriptive type based on a function-oriented model, the types of support facilities that can be provided, identification of critical design factors as design parameters for the framework and lastly, the adaptation of the Ishikawa fishbone diagram to represent the framework. The novel descriptive design methodology was applied in two case studies: the first with an experienced designer without using any design methods and second, with a novice designer adopting a design approach based on the step-oriented model. The second case study included an additional design tool based on TRIZ to verify the effectiveness of the novel descriptive design methodology working with other tools. The designers’ feedback and observations from these both case studies showed that the novel descriptive design methodology was able to support designers in many ways. In particular it was able to accommodate different design approaches and strategies without influencing the designer, providing both methodology-related and computational-platform related support facilities as well as working in a complementary way with other design tools.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Engineering
Subjects:	T Technology > TS Manufactures
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Descriptive design; Design methodology; Product design; Design support
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	19 Mar 2016 22:22
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/13913

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