Design Research: The Sociotechnical Aspects of Quality, Creativity, and Innovation

 Engineering design processes have undergone transformative changes over time, driven by a confluence of factors that have enhanced their efficacy and pertinence. This evolution is intricately tied to technological advancements, shifting societal needs and values. In response to the dynamic needs and perspectives within the industry, design research has evolved into a user-centred, data-driven, and socially responsible field closely aligned with technological advancements. This shift has led to fundamental principles in design research, emphasizing quality, innovation, and creativity. Initially confined to engineering design, the members of The Design Society broadened their research scope into trans-disciplinary realms, showcasing the interdisciplinary nature of modern design research. This transformation was evident in a workshop in Zagreb, where participants reflected on the triad of quality, creativity, and innovation in design research. The introduction chapter of this book sets a scene, bringing a brief overview of the developments through time.

Design optimization evolved in parallel to operations research as a way to codify and support design decisions mathematically. Design thinking emerged as a way to describe a user-centered design process that seeks to unpack the core values behind design decisions. In the modern definition of Design Science—as the field that studies the creation of artifacts and their embedding in our physical, psychological, economic, social, and digital environments—the two original approaches are merging. We offer a perspective on the design optimization evolution that links the engineering, business, computer, behavioural, and public policy sciences, primarily through mathematical modelling while explicitly recognizing its limitations.

This paper reviews the development of the design research community over the thirty-seven years since the first scientific and professional meeting on “The Science of Design and Computer Aided Design” was held in Zagreb in 1981. It does this in the light of the Zeitgeist of the times, considering the developments broadly in four separate decades. For each decade, observations are made on the Zeitgeist, on the key defining events and characteristics of the era, and then the development at the time of the design research community is considered, exploring how it responded to the Zeitgeist, and picking out some key achievements. Key milestones in the development of that community will be examined, and reflections will include the impacts of different disciplines, theoretical perspectives and cultural influences that have arisen in the development of a worldwide community.

The International Conference on Design, “DESIGN” is an important reoccurring event in the lives and careers of many design researchers and practitioners, worldwide. The conference has acted as a catalyst for many conversations, discussions, presentations and working meetings about the nature, contents and intent of design, as a vital activity in the continuous development of the synthetic world. This article provides a balance on the DESIGN conference and its contribution to the research community that today is gathered within the Design Society. We compare and contrast DESIGN against the Design Society’s flagship conference, ICED, and other conferences and meetings affiliated with the Design Society. And we reflect on the way in which the DESIGN conference has acted as a conduit and a testbed for the design research discussions and results that have emerged from our own university, the Technical University of Denmark.

This chapter presents the dynamics and interplay of individual and collaborative use of ICT tools during a design project-based learning course. During the COVID-19 pandemic, five teams (8–9 members) with members from Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, and Austria worked in a geographically distributed context. The results show that students utilise both individual and collaborative working modes. However, the dynamics of ICT use differ throughout the course. Typical design tools for 3D modelling become predominant just in the later course phases. In contrast, visualisation tools are used more during the initial phases. Finally, findings suggest that remote collaboration requires continuous and frequent use of communication tools (video conferencing and instant messaging) throughout the whole course. The presented findings can help educators and researchers in engineering education better structure their classes in post-pandemic settings.

COllaborative DEsign in Virtual Environment (CODEVE) is a teaching methodology developed within the European Global Product Realization (EGPR) course over a number of years. Today’s products are global and our students engage in their early professional practice facing challenges of working within distributed organisations to develop global products. Following early research on methods and tools in educating students for such challenges, the Global Product realisation course was initiated at the dawn of 21st Century and was performed since then as a collaboration between European Universities. Each year, an Academic Virtual Enterprise of participating Universities and an Industrial partner is formed in which students are distributed in international teams formed from multiple partner Universities. Educational activities and the project tasks are primarily communicated through video-conferencing and other synchronous and asynchronous means of communication. The design process model applied in CODEVE originates from the model of Pahl and Beitz, but is extended and adapted to suit the fuzzy front end of design projects performed in academic virtual enterprises. The extensions are related to creating a vision and implementing design research methodologies at the start of the project, blending phases of embodiment and detail design as well as bringing students for the first time in the final workshop which is aimed to culminate with the working prototype and public presentations of the products. The CODEVE methodology was tested on projects which include design of consumer products, service driven products and industrial machinery. The evaluation of the methodology was supported by the Erasmus + funded project called Networked Activities for Realization of Innovative Products (NARIP) from 2015–2017.

The CODEVE teaching methodology enables students to work on an industrial project, it encourages them to understand and explore methods from other disciplines and helps them to overcome barriers of distributed environment. Similarly, they realise that communication style, relationships with teammates, and the availability and clarity of shared information play a crucial role in the realisation of the project.

The CODEVE methodology has been implemented in academic institutions in Europe and tested in both European and transatlantic projects with Universities from Europe and America. This chapter outlines advantages and challenges in conducting this type of educational projects including the influence of the selection of product, industrial partners, marketing, implementation etc.

Creativity is one of the important research topics in engineering design, industrial design, psychology and other domains. Researchers are looking for possibilities to improve the creativity of individuals or teams based on methods, tools, specific environment or mindset. On the other hand, it is well known that in industry just a very small percentage of ideas available are leading to successful products. Why should we generate even more ideas, as long as the success rate is that poor? Design Thinking claimed to address this topic; SCRUM and similar concepts of agile development did this in a different way. Are these just simple trial and error methods? Is the classical design methodology becoming obsolete? Combining all the valuable methods and concepts including LEAN lead us to the TMS- approach developed at TUM. Interdisciplinarity, lean, agile, design methodology, and customer orientation are important aspects. A framework of methods and working principles are supporting this attempt. More than 300 master-students of different disciplines and more than 250 practitioners in industry worked in small interdisciplinary teams following this TMS- approach. More than 15% of the students continued and developed a start-up quite successfully. In industry the output and the comments of participants convinced their top-management. What is the origin of this success? Just making things work and tangible in early phases of product development! Then the designers as well as the management have a much better chance to recognise the potential of ideas! This was observed and recognised during all the projects. Conclusion out of this: research regarding creativity is valuable and necessary. More important in industry—and for students—is the “making” of ideas to reduce or eliminate inadequate barriers.

Design Methodology provides methods and tools to assure the development of new products and services with highest quality in regard to usability, acceptance and safety. In order to make this happen it is most relevant to know about the needs and wishes of current and future users and the challenges of context variables influencing the product, the process, the economic and ecological variables. In addition to many economic criteria and best case business practices there is a “must” relate to safe and easy-to-use products. And it seems that research and practice stressing the discipline of human factors by focusing much more on safety compared to design methodology. In fact there is no commonly agreed design-for-safety methodology, however Wang and Ruxton (1998) offer a version for a design methodology of large engineering systems. Expectations and requirements in regard to safety have been defined by industry in a variety of standards and industry norms. A safe product, an easy to use product is not defined or not only defined by the respective knowledge and experience of the engineers and designers, but above all by the application and compliance with relevant standards and rules for safety, ergonomics and usability and by the acceptance of the user who buys the product (Dekker, 2006).

ISO 9000:2015 defines the term “quality” as the “degree to which a set of inherent characteristics of an object fulfils requirements”. The same standard also defines basic concepts for the subordinated terms like “inherent characteristics”, “object”, “requirements”, etc. This article asks what all this means for “engineering design research” as one of the major objects in focus of this publication:

• How to decompose the object “design research” further?

• What are its (inherent) characteristics?

• What are the requirements?

• Who poses requirements?

The concluding chapter briefly encapsulates the discussions throughout the volume, underlining the evolution and challenges of design research with a strong emphasis on its interdisciplinary nature. Contributions within the volume trace the historical development of design research, underscore the role of conferences in shaping the design community, and deliberate on the significance of rigorous methodologies for maintaining credibility. The overarching theme of the discussions revolves around the pursuit of quality, creativity, and innovation through a delicate balance of technical expertise and social considerations. The contributions in this volume consistently underscore the vital role of collaboration, cultural understanding, and regulatory compliance in surmounting innovation barriers. Additionally, it highlights the dynamic and evolving nature of design research, demonstrating its commitment to addressing societal challenges through a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach.