Research into Design for Communities, Volume 1

Starting from the premise that a deeper understanding of creative design requires closer attention to the practitioners’ own accounts of what they are doing, a case study was aimed to trace and compare the way creative design is conceived and enacted by different design teams. Episodic interviews on past design projects were carried out with practitioners from two professional design teams and one educational institution. The case based analysis indicates locally coherent models of creative design, the cross-case comparison reveals fundamental differences in the way the local design processes and the underlying rationalities are construed.

In design, proper parametrization is an important activity. A straightforward parametrization using e.g. geometric dimensions directly seldom achieves models that can be easily modified to respond different functional requirements. A good parametrization contains some implicit information about the design space, and automatically excludes invalid solutions by minimizing the region of a design space that is unfeasible, e.g. by introducing parameters based on dimensionless numbers. In this way, waste of design space is minimized, and it can be quantified using design information entropy, so that different parametrizations can be compared. This is particularly useful in design optimization, but it is equally important in manual design. This is related to the independence axiom in Axiomatic Design, where ideally each functional requirement (FR) should be depending on only one design parameter (DP), but it is much more general, since it does not implicitly assume that the functional requirements are independent, but instead allows for correlation between them.

The objective of this paper is to explore the different value(s) that are prioritized and delegated by their users in a thing under their possession. The seating furniture at home was taken as the subject to study where users see it as an extension of their being. Using a method pivoting around Grounded Theory and Observation, it gathers meaningful data, process it through coding and memo writing and achieves a range of categories after a theoretical saturation. The paper attempts to borrow the classical rigour of Grounded Theory to come up with a Design Research Methodology for studying Design and its consumption.

The paper aims at sensitizing designers towards the voices of every stakeholder involved in designing a product that influences through the product’s life cycle, in a comprehensible way with an objective to facilitate designer towards a better design. This paper discusses the basic purpose and nature of design in the context of judging the aptness of a dialogue among the stakeholders including product in itself. It also discusses designers stand towards other stakeholder’s ideas in the design process for making the conversation dialogical or arguing in nature. The paper proposes ‘Design Tree’ as a structure, for creating distinct platforms for dialogue to happen at all stages of design evolution for design dialogue to be comprehensible.

Previous empirical studies in sketches and mental imagery showed that there is no significant difference in overall quality and possibility to use mental imagery as design tool. This preliminary study explores distinctions between two kinds of sessions in terms of how ideas are generated. Four design sessions of two novice designers are used to unveil differences. Based on preliminary results, physical properties of sketches underlie differences, also the availability of visual cues apart from the drawings itself. During interpretation stage, sketches provides an additional dialogue which is not available in mental imagery session. The use of mental imagery as design tool in novice designers vary and may not as effective as in experts. Pauses and gesture in both sessions are found to be fundamental designing aspects, including in environment when sketches are allowed. When crucial differences are no longer assumed, interplaying roles between the two can then be explored further.

Designers often refer to task analysis for mapping user’s activity while conceptualizing system design. Task analysis substantially optimizes task performance by addressing human error during system design. Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rule (GOMS) is widely used technique of task analysis to enhance usability, human performance and overall productivity of the system. Although widely used, a major constraint of GOMS is its inability to support designers to envisage the outcome of decision making for method selection while performing different operations to achieve the goal. This drawback of GOMS hinders efficiency of task analysis and thereby affects designers in optimizing design interventions for end users. The present study was conducted to address the issue of Decision making in GOMS. An integrated framework consisting of payoff matrix in GOMS has been proposed and validated. To evaluate the usability of proposed framework, five user experience experts were asked to evaluate two popular e commerce websites. The payoff matrix was evaluated using Laplace criterion of decision making under uncertainty rule of operation research strategy. The empirical evidence from the study indicated that selection rules for a method using human factors affects design decisions. The proposed framework reported here would support designers in their decision make process for an optimized design intervention.

The aim of this work is to develop an integrated study of surface roughness for modeling and optimization of cutting parameters during end milling operation of C40 steel with HSS tools under wet condition. The experimentation is carried out using full factorial design (three factor depth of cut, feed and spindle speed and three level). Artificial neural network (ANN) based on Back-propagation (BP) learning algorithm is used to construct the surface roughness model and second-order response surface model for the surface roughness is developed using Response surface methodology. By analysis three different surface curves it can be concluded that the minimum surface roughness (2.1779 µm) will be achieved when spindle speed, feed and depth of cut are 486 rpm, 46 mm/min and 0.31 mm respectively. Optimum parameters are obtained using GA, is near about same as value of optimum parameters obtained using RSM so it is concluded that RSM method is verified by GA Optimization.

Design methods tend to be described by the perspective of work steps and processes. For actual designers, however, the invisible internal thought process is deemed to be more important to achieve innovation and better designs, than the obviousness of step-wise tasks toward the completion of work. Thus, design activities focus on discovering, articulating, and editing constraints. This study shows a thinking process model in the early stage of design activities. The model was designed based on the perspective of two kinds of constraints: (1) external constraints that were induced by social needs or conditions and (2) internal constraints that were necessary to design objects to be formed in an orderly process. The model showed that in the thinking process, constraints were edited cyclically, and that three types of internal constraints were edited in this mechanism. Finally, the model was validated in a case of design activity.

In this paper we look at the role and a new definition for audience, participants and agency that can be used for analysis of Interactive Visual Narratives (IVNs). The definition of characters or actors from the semiotic elements of narrative studies cannot be directly used to investigate IVNs because, as interactivity comes to play, the actor could be the participant in the narrative or the agency that forms that constraints. Similarly, role of audience and author of the narrative changes based on the level of interactivity provided. In order to support our preceding premise, our analysis begins by looking at the influencing disciplines and building a conceptual model of digital agents that can play the role of actors in an IVN. Having looked at the role of actors and action in IVNs, we ensue our discussion on influencing applications and sample IVNs where the actors, their environments and the plot comes into play. We draw from the various examples examined to summarize the different approaches towards providing interactivity; narrative structure based on nodes and a simulation or an open-ended virtual world that contains procedure based narrative elements. We also try to distinguish the interactivity available at various levels and take a critical look at the role of author and participant. In conclusion we arrive at a new definition of Audience, Participant and Agency suitable to carry out investigation of the IVNs.

Flame holders are critical for efficient combustion in scramjet engines. There are various flame holder concepts, among them strut is one of the most prominent ones. Strut based flame holders decelerate the supersonic flow, providing more time for fuel air mixing and combustion. Although, this exposes the strut to very high as well as spatially varying pressure and heat flux giving rise to high temperature and stress across its structure. Thus, its structural design becomes highly challenging and its thermo-structural behaviour needs to be investigated for a robust design. In this work, spatially varying pressure and heat flux have been estimated using computational fluid dynamics analysis, which are used as boundary conditions for subsequent thermo-structural analysis. Based on thermo-structural behavior of strut, a multi-layer material system consisting of ZrB₂-SiC and phenolic cork has been proposed to mitigate high temperature and stress. This novel multi-layer material system, effectively reduces the temperature and stress experienced by the strut’s metallic interior to 910 K and 102 MPa respectively.

Service design projects done in organizations face constraints of resource, time and budgets. We discuss the blend Rapid Ethnography and Grounded Theory for the research conducted for the service experience of Rang De (www.rangde.org), a social venture running a Peer to Peer Social Lending service. The breadth, depth and richness of research outcomes required to design developmental and social impact services are higher. The methodology made a significant difference in comprehending the complexity of the service ecosystem and provided deep insights into the contextual and experiential aspects of the service seekers. We identified rich, actionable directions for service design leveraging the interconnected, tangible and intangible value flows across the service ecosystem. The advantages of using a strong methodological foundation for conceptualizing and executing rapid ethnography to overcome organizational constraints while designing complex services were established. Further, it points to the potential of seamless integration of participatory research and design thinking as synergistic components of the methodology.

The work proposes two different approaches to ergonomically design and evaluate tool handles considering optimal power grasp posture. The first investigation deals with the evaluation of handles of different shapes for fitness in hand, preferred subjective gripping experience and maximum hand-handle contact area. Initially 67 participants were utilized to determine optimal diameter for power gripped based cylindrical handles. On the basis of preferred optimal diameter, six handles of different shapes were developed. Based on a cluster analysis, a group of 17 participants were used to evaluate these handles through subjective responses and an image mapping technique. The second investigation involved the evaluation of an anatomically shaped handle for a kitchen paring knife. Five different commonly used knife handles and one anatomically shaped knife handle were evaluated by 27 participants using subjective comfort questionnaire.

India although has the largest numbers of young people, numbers of elderly people are also increasing. However with aging, human being starts losing their physical prowess and ability to take care of themselves. Various assistive devices have been already designed and manufactured outside the country so far for the elderly people. These assistive devices enable them to be self-dependent in carrying out their daily tasks. One of the very useful assistive devices for elderly with mobility impairment is a powered wheelchair, controlled manually and automatically in special cases but except providing mobility it cannot solve other problems associated with an elderly person. Every elderly person has different disabilities and adding each feature will only increase its cost. This paper deals with various issues of disability in the elderly people and incorporating modularity in the assistive to provide mass customization.

This paper reports findings from semi-structured interviews conducted with local train commuters with different level of vision-full vision, low vision, no vision and different level of familiarity-first time, occasional, daily commute. The study had two objectives (1) to understand how the current train and station environment limit or support wayfinding of train commuters (2) to explore and compare the wayfinding experiences of people with different level of vision and familiarity with station use and local train travel. The findings from the study highlight ‘universal design’ considerations that should be taken to improve the wayfinding experience in the existing station and train environment for wider population.

Effective wayfinding is important for people to make their way through spaces, as it improves efficiency, accessibility, and safety. This study focusses on understanding the importance of wayfinding behaviours of people in an outdoor environment. The study area is an archaeological heritage site in the city of Delhi, India. Three navigational exercises were conducted to study the wayfinding behaviours among the users. Findings from each of the exercises are compared and evaluated. The correlation between the studied wayfinding measures is calculated and analysed to study the significant patterns in the behaviour of the participants. The results show that verbal directions for wayfinding are found to be the simplest, while directional signs and maps help in strengthening the cognitive maps of users. Users avoid unfamiliar routes, and tend to walk on the routes with more wayfinding aids, and physical structures.

Sense of Place is the interaction of the human with its environment, and is an important element of any place making process. Design should be legible to the user, and should be done according to the social, physical requirements of the users. Yet, there are numerous instances, where the users discard the built environment, in this case the public park. In this paper, we have considered the two parks developed near the Solani aqueduct in the city of Roorkee. While the smaller of the two is used by the residents of the city, the larger one is forsaken by the people. This unique case where two parks are in the vicinity of each other, cater to the same demography, but the user interaction with the spaces being markedly different, proves to be an ideal study of behavioral patterns and sense of place for users of a public space.

Interaction with a smartphone occupies a large amount of time of day. Sometimes people are using mobile phone sizes which are either too large or too small. As per the different task is concern, users may find trouble with the mobile phones having extreme sizes. Hence, perceived handiness is very important factor which may be associated with satisfaction of mobile phone use. On the other side, hand anthropometry may be another determinant of mobile size preference. Hence, this study aims to relate hand anthropometry, smartphone handiness and mobile size preference and to determine the most preferred size of the mobile phone from a range of mobile phones. It was observed that there was a significant negative correlation exists between hand anthropometric dimensions and mobile handiness or size preference scores. This result indicated that users prefer a mobile phone which is comparatively bigger in size than the size of their hands. In addition, people perceived mobile phones as less handy those are either too small in size or too big in size. Smartphone with medium size (H: 138.0 mm, W: 70.0 mm, D: 8.0 mm, V: 77280.0 mm3) was most handy and preferred by the most users, among studied mobile phones.

Toothbrush handles available in the market are classified in adult, junior and baby sizes. As per IS 3387:2004, the length of the handle for these variants is specified. However, the width and thickness of the handle is not specified. As per the standard “The width and thickness of the handle may vary according to the individual design”. The focus of the current work is to design an ergonomic toothbrush handle based on hand anthropometry. This would improve the grip of the handle (user comfort) and enhance oral hygiene. A commercially available toothbrush was taken as reference to find out the optimal parameters of toothbrush handle. Hand anthropometric data of volunteers was collected. The comfort rating of these volunteers was related to the normalized handle sizes. The resulting regression equation was used to find out the optimal handle dimensions. Contact area was measured using both commercially available toothbrush handle and the same toothbrushes with different fabricated handle sleeves. Electromyography activity was recorded for muscle fatigue. The plaque index was also obtained before and after two weeks of using customized toothbrush handle. It was observed that the customized toothbrush handle was comparatively more purposeful. Relevance to Industry. From the results of this study, tooth brush designers, researchers and manufacturers can obtain guidelines for maximising grip comfort based on the hand sizes of users. The results also shows that optimal handle diameter will result in increasing the subjective comfort rating which will further increase the user performance and will lower the risk of muscle fatigue.

Womanhood issues at workplace with specific reference to basic amenities are major problem in the police duties. This paper looks into the womanhood specific issues at Police Stations. Personal interview and individual responses to a subjective assessment questionnaire were recorded from forty policewomen of different ranks posted in Guwahati, Assam (N = 40, purposive non-probability sampling) to have their views on these issues. A thorough scrutiny of the actual situation revealed critical lack of facilities and basic amenities for policewomen (pertinent to womanhood) at workplace, i.e. the general police stations. Analysis of the responses reflected policewomen to be under stress at their outdoor duties and workplace also, specifically due to the lack of privacy and conveniences facilities. This piece of work depicts the views and feelings of policewomen before and after implementation of proposed design interventions in an existing police station, there by improvement of their occupational wellbeing.

A user interface is one an essential component that determines the efficacy of computer software. Therefore, evaluating and improving a user interface are crucial aspects of the software development process. User interfaces have been improved through various methods, including user testing and heuristic approaches. However, these techniques cannot be applied practically because the data provided by them may contain subjective aspects and do not reveal the developer’s demands. Therefore, to develop practical methods required in this field, we interviewed the developers on site to understand their needs. With this information, we developed a technique and conducted an experiment. In the process, we successfully analysed and illustrated the problems in a user interface by using flow line analysis techniques to obtain a user’s software-usage history. Finally, by applying the technique to experimental software interface and interviewing the developers, we verified that the new method provided the necessary information.

Managing design practice in an Information Technology (IT) company can be challenging as there are many factors which need to be addressed. Three main perspectives which need to be looked at are: business from a company’s perspective, user experience from domain perspective and designers from personnel perspective. These three areas are interdependent of each other and need to be addressed separately. Many a times there is a conflict between business and UX practice as well as between designers and business on scope and quality of the output and deliverables. Designers have a different way of working when compared to software developers or architects and designers do not fit into an “ideal” IT resource frame or the IT way of working. Designers need independence, recognition and challenges to grow as well improve quality of design deliverables. One needs to evaluate whether a consolidated central design team across delivery verticals is beneficial or a distributed design team across delivery verticals is beneficial. There are advantages and disadvantages of both the approaches. Software product development environment and software services environment also have different focus and requirements. Designers have to follow the established processes, timelines and delivery schedules. In some cases, a designer is required to think beyond the normal and innovate to make a difference. In most cases, the scope of the deliverables is fixed and the designers need to work on the “usual” delivery. This paper explores various factors and issues related to functioning of a user experience design practice in a software development organization and the nuances of managing designers.

Data intensive applications are backbone for sectors like—banking, insurance and retail industry. Data representation and workflow are two most important aspects of such applications. Although, data representation is catching-up with the latest trends, but for traditional sectors like Banking, Finance, Securities and Insurance (BFSI), any new technology or design trend takes a while before it is integrated into the applications. Such sectors try to minimize risk caused due to new technology environment. There is a wait and watch attitude towards new technology and new user experience. These sectors are the last to adopt the latest design trends. Back-office and mid-office applications have not changed much over the last 10–15 years. Some large banks from North America, Europe and Nordic regions are using applications which are more than 50 years old. Design trends like gamification are rarely used in banking sector. BFSI retail sector is changing fast with advent of new technology and better customer experience. New channels like mobility and tablet; touch enabled platforms like iOS and Android are changing the face of application design and behavior. Users expect similar behavior from the traditional and data intensive applications as well. These new platforms not only use the latest technologies and user experience but also make use of latest design trends which includes gamification. This paper looks at design trends which are shaping the digital media and their impact on traditional and data intensive sectors like banking, finance and insurance.

This case study was conducted to understand the risk factors for the pressure sore development post rehabilitation among Indian veterans with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). Development of pressure sore is common among people with SCI. Rehabilitation centers help people with SCI to understand the SCI better and teaches them to deal with its secondary problem like Pressure Sore. The veterans of Post Rehabilitation Center are quadriplegic and paraplegic and have reported the development of pressure sore post rehabilitation. Most common areas of development of pressure are Sacrum, Ischia, R/L Trochanters. Veterans with complete SCI are more at risk of development of Pressure sore. The paper provides the potential risk factors due to which veterans with SCI develop pressure sore post rehabilitation.

Styling plays an important role in automotive appearances to attract visual attention. Features such as the headlights and windscreen become the prime carriers of style that can evoke visual interest. These features involve major to fine refinements in form as well as their compositional arrangements while designing. The feature that evokes high visual interest in isolation, or whether the combinations of features sustain visual interest for a long time, can be valuable knowledge for the designer and stakeholder teams to make visual decisions on form especially during early stages of designing. Present study deals with feature level observations of Autorickshaw concepts as Areas of Interest (AOI) to assess attention distribution towards the form features during concept development stage. The data is obtained as visual response of Product Designers (PD), Automobile Designers (AD), Autorickshaw Drivers (DR), and Passengers (PS) through eye tracking. The investigation analyzes how visual attention can be driven by features in isolation or in combination within larger units for four concept representations of the Autorickshaw. The effect of variations in visual-formal characteristics of the designed form is analyzed conjointly with by assessing the dwell time (DT) on each feature through a demarcation of specific AOIs, as well as a gridded analysis of the spatial distribution of visual attention on specific features. The findings indicate that the concept with curved features that are arranged in proximity, evoke high visual interest; instead of a concept, that supports sharp angular non-proximal features, implying that proximity and curved features can have strong combining effect to evoke and sustain visual interest in Autorickshaw styling. Overall, it was observed that the spatial distribution of attention converges, getting focused on the Cowl and the Headlights during style scrutiny. Increase in proximity of features results in an increased dwell time, thereby causing an active visual scrutiny that sustains visual interest. A combination of strategically placed proximal features, accentuates visual interest and the perception of style in observers. When available at the early stages of designing such inferential visual response feedback as objective knowledge can help the designers to anticipate sustained visual interest in a designed object, and help predict product acceptance, thereby curtailing potential market risks.

Pedestrians belong to one of the most vulnerable group of road users. During a car pedestrian impact, injuries may happen to the head, which may be fatal enough to cause death, or to the lower extremity which is non fatal. Lower extremities are the first region in the human body to come in contact with the vehicle. During a car pedestrian impact, lower extremity injuries which occurs due to the bumper contact can either be a bone fracture or knee ligament injury. Car pedestrian impact is studied from the lateral direction. A real world car pedestrian impact can occur from any orientation to the lower extremity. The present study investigates the variation in the lower extremity injuries with the variation in impact orientation. Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS), the standard finite element human model developed by Toyota central R&D labs, was modified with failure values to the knee ligaments and bones to evaluate the lower extremity injuries during an impact.

This paper presents a user modelling system that facilitates developing and using interfaces for people with wide range of abilities. It consists of a simulator that helps designers to understand, visualize and measure effect of physical impairment on user interfaces. The modelling system also consists of a web service to customize static features (like font size, colour contrast) of an interface and a pointing facilitation module that predicts users’ intended target. The paper highlights applications of the system in product design and developing a web based geo-tagging application for reporting civic, healthcare issues and disaster warning messages by elderly users themselves.

Street food vending in developing countries, like India, provides convenient, inexpensive, and diverse cuisine to locals and tourists alike, while providing employment to millions of urban poor. However, despite street food’s significant role in the urban food supply, it continues to be perceived as unhygienic and a hindrance to modernization. In many cases it exists as an illegal informal market, with migrant vendors working daily on the edges of busy roadways. The study investigated the nature and operations of street food vendors influencing hygienic practices. The author’s research was conducted through direct and indirect interaction with these vendors, the creation and implementation of questionnaires, and continued investigative collaboration with stakeholders. The findings offered a number of impediments that led to poor hygienic practices. The resulting design solution allows street food vendors to overcome shortcomings, which not only benefits their business but also improve the experience of their customers.

Roll over of heavy equipment operating in the construction, mining and agricultural sectors is a major cause of accidents. Safety frames called ROPS (roll over protective structures) have been used to protect the operators during rollover accidents. A ROPS cabin should withstand the loads and consume energy during roll over. At present, ROPS standards require full scale destructive testing to assess its adequacy which can be expensive and time consuming. The use of analytical methods to assess the performance is prohibited by them due to lack of fundamental research information on the nonlinear inelastic response of the structures. However, a non-linear finite element analysis has been used to simulate the ROPS testing. The FEA results have been compared with that of experimental testing and the FEA methodology has been improved to get a good correlation. In future this FEA approach will be used to finalize the ROPS design prior to full scale testing to minimize the number of prototype and thereby reduces the development cost and time.

Rapid advancements of 3D printing technologies have created new opportunities and challenges. The material extrusion and the stereolithographic 3D printers, which were recently launched in a desktop size, herald a new time whereby common people will be able to own manufacturing means in their home. The prime motivation of this study was driven from the gap that existed between the market that offers desktop 3D printers, along with access to 3D printed products, and the users which still had not widely adopted this new technology. The study was derived from a wider continuous research that examined the personal desktop 3D printing market, and to better understand the existing situation, the study reviewed 5 CAD softwares oriented at product design for non-professional users and 16 websites that offer 3D printed parts and products.

An adaptable-function mechanical product belongs to a specific category of products that are feasible in delivering multiple functions by replacing/changing some of its components. The functions are referred to as being adaptable because they suit to different applications. To design such a product, it is necessary to study the process of function switching, during which there shall be detaching and/or disassembling of some existing components, as well as attaching and/or assembling some new components. Existing work on modular design and structure-sharing design provides certain research basis but has not directly addressed such a function switching process. In this paper, we make an initial attempt to study the mechanism and characteristics of the process. The mapping relation between the prior function and the prior structure, as well as the mapping relation between the posterior function and the posterior structure are investigated and represented. Specifically, in order to get a proper disassembly-assembly sequence in the process of function switching, we propose a sequence optimization method consisting of both disassemble (of existing non-sharing parts) and assemble (of new non-sharing parts). To simplify the conventional interference matrix used for the disassembly-assembly sequence planning, an aggregated interference matrix, which was used to express the interference of parts in the individual direction, was proposed. The disassembly-assembly sequence was optimized by using MATLAB. A case study was also presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.

The objective was to develop an adjustable gang drilling attachment for radial drilling machine using retrofit approach. General purpose machines are not designed for mass production and to increase productivity is by the use of Special Purpose Machines (SPM’s). SPMs such as ‘Gang Drilling Machines’ are generally which are usually employed in order to drill multiple holes simultaneously are too expensive for small scale industries. Hence there was a need to develop an attachment that provides multiple drilling capabilities at variable diameter and low cost. This attachment can increase the productivity and performance of existing radial drilling machine. The first step was a detailed kinematic study of radial drilling machine. Several designs of drilling attachments were developed and analyzed for kinematic properties, manufacturing viability and cost. The ‘Telescopic link type’ attachment was selected. This was followed by a detailed design of each component of the attachment and its manufacturing.

It is a well-known fact that the design phase is fragmented from the construction phase predominantly due to the differing perceptions of the two phases. In any construction project, the decisions in design take place without foreseeing the constructability issues thereby resulting in changes, errors, omissions, repetition, redesign or rework. The ideal solution to overcome this is to integrate these two phases which is complicated to achieve. Thus, the objective of the present study is to investigate an integration mechanism for construction projects. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is the recent buzz word in construction firms that has the potential features to integrate teams, processes, information, etc. Although researchers had identified BIM (Building Information Modeling) as one of the potential virtual tools for addressing the constructability issues, still it is inadequate. In this paper, two approaches-Point-based and Set-based design process were explored and compared to understand its pros and cons. Further, a generic integration framework was proposed to improve constructability during conceptual design planning of construction project.

Choosing the right design alternative requires consideration of various attributes, such as functionality, cost, ease of manufacture, etc. In the early stages of design there usually isn’t enough information to make assessments of all these attributes. Often times, designers base these early decisions on qualitative assessments of indicators such as complexity, flexibility, or modularity, in place of the attributes of interest. Various methods have been proposed in literature to quantitatively calculate such indicators. However, the methods need design information to be provided in non-standard formats leading to errors, inconsistencies, and subjectivity in evaluation. This paper argues the benefits of using a standard modeling language such as SysML to capture design information and extract consistent information for calculating these indicators. Using alternate hybrid vehicle architectures as an example, the paper presents a framework to calculate two such indicators, viz. modularity and complexity.

Current approaches in Model-Based Systems Engineering lack of broad application in the automotive product development due to an unmanageable modeling effort and high complexity in system models. The paper describes a novel approach in Systems Engineering (SE), based on the systematic management of ordinary engineering parameters as quantifiable, relatable and traceable characteristics of Engineering Objects in product development. The approach aims for the support of a highly complex product development, by supplying engineering processes with the right information at the right time and by allowing traceability in implicitly generated system models on the level of Engineering Parameters.

Recent development in Design For Assembly (DFA) has motivated product designers towards minimizing the number of parts in a product so as to reduce the assembly efforts. Assembly sequence for the reduced number of parts with the modified part topologies may not be possible. Determination of optimal assembly sequence for the modified product by performing assembly sequence planning is highly time consuming and it demands high skilled user intervention. In order to achieve the optimum feasible assembly sequence with less computational time, researchers in the past proposed many methods. In this paper, an attempt is made to generate optimal feasible assembly sequences using DFA concept by considering all the assembly sequence testing criteria from obtained feasible assembly sequences. A simulated annealing technique is used to generate all sets of feasible assembly sequences. The obtained sequences consist n − 1 levels during assembly, which will be reduced by DFA concept. DFA uses functionality of the assembled parts, material of the assembled parts and liaison data of the parts to reduce the number of levels of the assembly by considering the directional changes as the objective function.

Recent studies report that globally unintentional fall among aging population is one of the most costly and complex healthcare issue. There is a possibility that elderly might fall when they are alone and no one is there to help them. In such conditions if the fall remained unnoticed for a long duration its impact can be fatal. To avoid any severe after- fall damage there are various technology based solutions available which can reduce such issues. These include fall detection system which can be Video Based, Environmental Sensor Based, Wearable and Mixed Approach, i.e., combination of two or more techniques. It assists elderly and their caregivers through detecting falls and calling for help as soon as falls occur via triggering notification alarms. This paper gives a review for technologies related to fall detection for aging people and their caregivers along with suggestions for future research directions. Cost effectiveness, privacy, perceived usefulness and ease of technology used are the important factors for a successful technology intervention.

Language teachers are increasingly using image prompts in their composition classes, in keeping with the increasingly visual culture that learners are exposed to. However, there seem to be no specific guidelines or frameworks towards designing images for use as writing prompts, nor any reasoning as to why certain images might work best for this purpose. This paper tries to address this, and looks specifically at image prompts and how they are used by institutions and practitioners who try to teach creative writing. It builds on two earlier studies about images as narrative prompts, which are ‘Prompting Narratives: The Kaavad Tradition’ (IIC Quarterly Autumn, [7]) and ‘Eliciting stories: Exploring images as prompts’ (He Kupu J 3(5):92–100, [8]). Based on the above studies, as well as those of image prompts currently used in Indian schools, this paper suggests that static visual narratives are well-suited for use as prompts for practising narrative writing, and attempts to define a number of criteria that designers may want to keep in mind when trying to design image prompts for the writing classroom.

Variability is an inherent feature of any manufactured product or system that can be caused by process inhomogeneity, environmental perturbations, operating stress-induced degradations or unexpected human interference during fabrication and use. The design of a product or system should account for and model the probabilistic nature of these variations that have an impact on its yield, reliability and robustness. This study is intended to present a combination of a theory based on the concept of “percolation” and an algorithm based on Monte Carlo that can serve as a key model-based design tool to quantify the variability in performance/lifetime/material properties/time-based events and identify the possible root cause(s) for the variance so that the design process could be refined to improve and optimize the homogeneity of the population of devices that would be manufactured on a large scale from the evolving product design stage.

In the assembling enterprises, welding assisted hardfacing has pulled in expanding consideration for its powerful protection against erosion, thermal shock, and abrasion. Nano-particle reinforcements can fundamentally enhance the mechanical properties of the lattice by more viably advancing the molecule solidifying components than micron estimate particles. This paper presents the multi-target optimization of manual metal arc welding (MMAW) process parameters in hardfacing with Nano-technology based electrode. Experimentation was arranged according to Taguchi’s orthogonal array. In this paper, tests have been led utilizing welding current, arc voltage, welding speed as input process parameters for assessing numerous responses in particular weld bead width, reinforcement and bead hardness. A mix of Taguchi’s robust design idea with desirability function analysis (DFA) has been connected to enhance the process parameters. A composite desirability value is gotten for the multi-responses utilizing individual desirability values from the DFA. In light of composite desirability value, the best possible levels of parameters have been distinguished.

Do different representations of space evoke the same response in viewers? This paper reports on a pilot study exploring designers’ cognitive load as they view different digital representation of spaces to determine the effect of the representations. The results reported in this paper are from a group of year 3 and year 4 architecture students from Harbin Institute of Technology in China who participated in the experiment. The two representational modalities in this study that participants were asked to view were a computer-generated hidden-line perspective and a digital photograph of the same space. Their physiological data were recorded by eye-tracking equipment, including participants’ eye gaze trace location and pupil size. The same seven Area of Interests (AOI) were defined in each of the two representations. Results show statistically significant cognitive load change when the AOI focused on changes. The cognitive loads for the two representations were found not to be significantly different.

Computational Cognitive Science (CCS) is a new domain of interdisciplinary study to address problems related to human emotions, cognition, and socio-behavioral aspects based on computational and predictive techniques. The CCS addresses computational model development for software application to configure human emotions. People would like to buy a product which has emotional values. Therefore, it’s become essential to design emotive product that represent the expected emotive qualities of consumers. Kansai Engineering (KE) is one of the beneficial techniques to design emotive products. The term ‘Kansei’ is a Japanese word which is referred to sensitivity, sensibility, feeling and emotion. Literature suggested that KE process helps in creativity based product design. Further, creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize new ideas or alternatives that may be useful to solve problems. So far, there is hardly any computer application found which generates creative and emotive design ideas based on KE process. This paper proposed a CCS based framework to design KE computational application. Consequently, the application will help designers to design emotive products in an effective way.

For real-time ergonomic applications, it is essential to track body data and perform real-time data analysis, for detecting postural deviations and possible ergonomic difficulties. This paper presents a setup that uses a body tracking system for automated, real-time postural data collection during an assembly task, for use in ergonomic studies. An analysis of the tracked data in developing a measure for assemblability assessment is also presented. A case study of a standing posture assembly, which involved inserting a threaded bolt into a threaded hole in a peg board, is used for the analysis. During the assembly task, postural data of operators is tracked automatically and analysed for angular variations in time, which is then compared with the benchmarks provided by RULA. The time taken in various postures across the activities is also compared. The results show that variation in the torso angle can be taken as a potential measure for assessing reach difficulty in assembly.

The E-Government Systems built for Government to Citizen (G2C) services are with the objective of providing quality services, in the minimum possible time. The user experience of a citizen begins from the time of receiving the information about a service and its benefits and accessing the service through multiple channels to the final interaction with the system itself. The end-to-end experience of the interaction that the citizen has with the system can be termed as the human-system or human-computer interaction (HCI). The different stages combine to form the user experience. This paper highlights the present challenges in the existing Government Websites, focused for those under the Government of Assam and the efforts being taken by the Government of Assam in ‘Standardization of Websites’. It takes into consideration many important aspects but key among them being: the role that the interaction nature of citizens play while designing such citizen-facing websites: what are the deeper problems in the system that is preventing its wider usage; how the citizens interact with the system and their experience in terms of usability, usefulness and the level of satisfaction; are the interaction patterns of the service delivery to the users adequate. Are the services being provided in the right manner; do the citizens get what they look for in the minimum time with minimal efforts. Since there are many departments within the Government of Assam, how does one resolve the question that the user is within the Government of Assam website and not out of it? The principles for establishing a generic framework for building effective, interactive and usable systems are brought out in this paper so that these can be embedded during the design stage life cycle of systems.

In the north-eastern states of India, paddy threshing is mostly carried out by traditional methods (such as bullock treading; beating by hand; crushing by foot, etc.) which require an enormous physical effort. These discomfited situations expose workers to many risk factors from ergonomics viewpoint. Therefore, it has been perceived that there is a necessity for systematic design and development towards low cost, manually operated, portable thresher considering the contextual need and topo-geographical conditions. The present research demonstrates the development of a concept CAD model of a portable pedal operated paddy thresher and evaluates the model through virtual ergonomic assessment. For virtual ergonomic evaluation of the CAD model of the thresher, customized digital manikins (5th, 50th and 95th percentile models of both male and female) were created in DELMIA software. These manikins represent anthropometric dimensions of the Assamese agricultural worker population. Postural comfort evaluation in virtual environment revealed that the proposed model was found to be acceptable. Following virtual ergonomic evaluation, it is expected that the development of real physical prototype would certainly be cost effective, user-friendly and efficient for small and marginal farmers in the rural area.

More than one million people die per year on world’s road. Researches have identified drivers’ cognitive aspects as the major cause of human errors in 80% of crash events. Driver-Assistance Systems (DAS) have been developed to detect data about vehicle, environment and driver, and to communicate information usually through the senses of vision and hearing. But, the growth of in-vehicle devices increases the visual and auditory demand of the driver. This research aims at investigating whether olfactory stimuli can be used to elicit drivers’ cognitive aspects. An experimental framework has been set up, and testing sessions have been organised. The analysis of the data collected from tests shows that olfactory stimuli are more effective in increasing some subjects’ physiological parameters than the auditory ones. Therefore, smells may be used as a DAS, for increasing drivers’ attention.

The Italian fashion industry is nowadays subject to radical transformation; therefore, it needs to remain competitive and, at the same time, innovate itself, in order to strengthen its position in the global market. An important opportunity of innovation can be the introduction of ICT technologies in the garment design process, which today is based on traditional methods and tools. Moreover, this innovation could be particularly important for online sales, in order to reduce the customers’ doubts during purchasing. The research presented in this paper describes a framework for designing clothes as realistic 3D digital models and for allowing customers to evaluate the designed clothes by using realistic virtual mannequins of their bodies instead of the standard ones. A case study will be presented in the paper. The obtained results show that the framework can innovate the traditional garment design process and it could have a huge impact on fashion industry and customers behaviours.

This paper provides insights into the design research process and outcomes of an art gallery website designed by a design studio . Our research indicated that artists often do not exhibit their art work in popular virtual art galleries, not only because intermediation of art curator tends to be cost intensive but also because appropriate art curators are difficult to find. Our research is aimed at developing support for providing value for works of artists through developing an artist friendly website wherein artists can sell their art without the aid of art curators. Physical art galleries design the art display environment for the users in a unique way by providing them a soothing experience of connecting to the art through lighting, space and ambience. We attempt to transfer the same experience virtually to the user. Through multiple methods such as competitor analysis and interviews with art enthusiasts, artists and art curators, we identified certain issues with existing art galleries on the web and jotted requirements for the novel art gallery design. We present the evolution of a new art gallery design including information architecture, wireframe and implementation. We discuss the novel features of the new design such as an art value calculator that helps artists to estimate the value of their art without the aid of an art curator. We will also discuss the issues faced with employing design research methods such as card sorting and interviewing, and then provide certain suggestions for improving specific aspects of these methods.

We investigate a relationship between the product display and the purchase decision using an eye-tracking system. It is possible to get quantitative data of saccade and gaze plots from an eye movement detector. We make clear that a display of goods is related to the consumer’s thinking process when a consumer decides about the purchase, using this method. We conclude that eye movement can be an important index as a result of data from this experiment, as well as the accompanying interview and questionnaire survey, when a display of goods influences consumer’s product purchase.

Commercially available engineering design tools typically operate on native data formats and support individual designers creating design descriptions which are shared within product development teams and across supply networks. The use of such tools results in a multiplicity of design descriptions. For example, a CAD system may be used to create a design Bill-of-Materials (BoM), which is a form of design description, but different BoMs are needed for downstream processes such as manufacturing and servicing. Conventional approaches to the integration of design descriptions is through the use of data exchange technologies or a common underlying meta-model to support, ultimately, a single, shared digital design description. These approaches have architectural elegance but their real-world feasibility is limited by the heterogeneous environment in which they must be implemented. The research reported in this paper challenges this thinking and explores the feasibility of embedding design descriptions into each other. We report early results exploring the feasibility of using lattice theory, where lattices are in the form of partially ordered sets, to embed multiple design structures into a given design description.

This paper compares and contrasts how grassroots innovations are supported in a developing country such as India with how the support is offered in Wales, UK. In India, design support for grassroots innovations is provided through the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) with the help of local universities. In Wales, the Welsh Government provides funding for indigenous innovations through the Academic Expertise for Business (A4B) program. The paper presents two case studies, one from India where a grassroots innovation was developed into a commercial product with the design support of an Indian institution and one from Wales where design support was provided by PDR (the National Centre for Product Design and Development Research), Cardiff Metropolitan University and Welsh universities. Three key questions investigated in the case study research were: (1) what can be learned from comparing and contrasting the design support given to grassroots innovations in India and Wales? (2) How can people and local businesses benefit from collaboration with university research centres in India? (3) How could this design support be further improved?

Local crafts and traditional designs are symbolic representations of culture of their origin. Conservation of this art has always been accorded priority. Several instances have been reported of a craft’s lineage having died out because there being very few craftsmen willing to continue practicing or train new interns. Continuing the family traditions is becoming difficult besides resulting in documentation gaps and tacit knowledge loss. Designers need efficient methods to capture and document a craftsman or a fine artists or a designers’ mental model not only during creation but also during reflection and conservation. This paper outlines a method and process to identify components of tacit knowledge within Implicit and Explicit knowledge categories of a crafts object. Craftsman engaged during the creation of the objects are observed and documented. Using ethnography and personal interviews, their activity is analyzed to derive and categorize components of knowledge. It is posited that such methods have potential use in conservation, geographical identification and documentation. Ultimate aim is to be able to translate such traditional knowledge into the digital format for use with machines so as to be able to reproduce—to the best of mapping possible—such designs that have been abandoned due to their inability to be passed on to newer generations.

Mechatronic product development is a complex endeavor. Process and project management are approaches expected to handle the arising complexity in engineering design. Formal yet adaptable design processes have been identified as best practice in empirical studies, but an effective management requires appropriate process models. While general design methodologies in literature do exist, they are often very abstract and need to be adapted to an organization’s context as well as the context of its individual projects. In this paper, we present a reference model for mechatronic system design along with an initial methodology for systematic organization-specific process concretization. The reference model has been developed from a literature basis as well as in cooperation with five SMEs with a background in mechatronic system development, performing an analysis of the company-specific processes regarding commonality and differences.

The definition and formalization of engineering design processes has been identified as a best practice in empirical studies, and process reference models in literature are plentiful. However, since no two engineering design projects or even organizations are the same, flexible processes and their adaption and tailoring are a necessity. This results in corresponding activities to be carried out by process and project managers. Hence the question arises what approaches do exist in order to support individuals in carrying out these tasks? In this chapter, a literature review has been carried out in order to identify existing approaches, which have consequently been categorized. Since the investigated approaches stem mainly from the domain of software development, we propose the need and opportunity to transfer these approaches to interdisciplinary product development.

This paper outlines, in a very comprehensive way, a guidance based articulation to help fresh designers transition into a professional user experience (UX) designer, in a project driven organization. It aims to bridge the gap by providing three-fold directions honed after substantial trials and abstraction: (a) Projects—To understand the bigger picture of a project lifecycle and see how the design process aligns across the overall project timeline. (b) Design Process—Every designer follows a process, but how can that be streamlined into a coherent way of working. This direction provides an easy guided compilation of steps by translating the process into tangible action points (c) Quality—How can we measure and quantify design output? What ensures quality? This direction provides a set of metrics across process, communication and product by asking meaningful questions in order to evaluate design outcome.

The aim of this study is to discover how inter-subjectivity is formed among various organizations in horizontal relationships as a basis of sustainable collaborative innovation. Since each organization in a horizontal relationship is independent, generating a sustainable project among multiple organizations is different from one within an established organization or one among organizations in vertical relationships. Forming inter-subjectivity among organizations is required as the founding phase of collaborative projects. The authors have empirically approached this problem and introduced the research methodology of dynamics, referring to knowledge creation theory. The results of our study demonstrate that it is essential to form inter-subjectivity among collaborators, which could be the base for dynamic innovation shared by stakeholders. Further, the outcome of this study will likely contribute to the development of the design methodology for innovation ecosystems among organizations in horizontal relationships, as well as to the substantial expansion of the scope of knowledge management theory.

Currently, numerous approaches on how to cope with engineering changes exist in form of complex Engineering Change Management (ECM) systems. However, startups and small companies have difficulties implementing these systems due to the lack of flexibility and agility—in addition to financial aspects. A trend mostly used within Software Development to cope with fast changing environments is agile development. However, while transferring agile frameworks into the development of mechatronic systems new challenges on managing Engineering Changes arise. The approach proposed in this paper aims to manage Engineering Changes within an agile framework providing decision support for three different situations in which changes can occur.

In this current scenario of highly competitive market, the product development time plays a key role in determination of existence and excellence of an organization in a business. Organizations involved in new product development try to reduce product development time by employing different methods such as concurrent engineering, value stream mapping, efficient-scheduling, accelerated testing, etc.… Despite various techniques available, the reduction of bottlenecks in product development remains a challenge in many organizations. In Machinery Industry, the product consists of combination of make and buys. In most cases, the major source of lead time is from bought out components where the scope of control is limited. Proper scheduling and modifications in design processes and review methodologies to adapt these kinds of situations can accelerate the product development process significantly. This paper elucidates various challenges in product development, factors affecting lead time and a time based approach for design that reduces product development lead time at design stage itself. The approach uses concurrent engineering that enables and guides through the process to create an optimized design by itself in such situations involving make and buy components. This method has been implemented in development of a product which has helped to reduce the design time by more than 40%.

Rattan and bamboo are important forest resources for the North Eastern Region (NER) of India. Naturally growing in abundance, they find use in a number of industries such as housing, construction, handicrafts, furniture and food industry. Of late, this industry has seen considerable growth outside the NER. But it has not been able to realize its full potential in NER due to significant lack in market orientation of the craftsmen who work from remote areas in NER and try to sell in urban markets. This paper looks into the urban markets, which holds the highest scope for revenue growth for this industry and investigates the gap in the customer preferences and current industry value proposition. The main gaps found are: lack of awareness, limited training focused only on techniques, lack of design awareness and sensitivity (ergonomics, attention to detail, finishing, presentation), lack of branding and marketing knowledge and limited outreach of self help groups (SHG) and clusters.

Assam Tourism has a potential to provide a unique experience to tourists in addition to the known pilgrimage and forest resort to explore distinctive culture of the native people. Visitors purchase mementos like tea, bamboo crafts and they are always attracted towards silk products of Assam. Plenty reported researches are available on general retail management but it is generally found that very less focus has been on how the tourists perceive the exterior environment and what their responses to shopping locations are. In spite of excellent quality of Assam silk products, due to poor service design, purchase experience is not up to the mark. Based on a survey of tourist response to the service design and showrooms located in the Panbazar area of Guwahati owned by local silk weavers’ societies, an idea of developing a ‘Silk Promotion Hub’ where tourists may spend some time to get experience of silk rearing, various handloom activities and appreciate/purchase the fine quality silk products have been conceived. Entire collected information from questioner, interview and videography was studied thoroughly and a brainstorm session was conducted with a small expert group containing 4 designers/design academicians, to identify the key considerations for the proposed park. Following brainstorming and discussions, some two-dimensional (2D) schematic diagrams were conceptualized for the ‘Silk Promotion Hub’. It is expected that the intended design layout of the silk promotion hub/park would be beneficial for hassle free informative purchase experience of the tourist. Most of the tourist might be tempted to buy the product. Moreover, informative experience and memory of the park would influence them deeply. This in turn would help in strengthening the bond between visitors and native people for a harmonious relation.

In this article we present the matchmaking problem in industrial symbiosis where wastes from one company are matched with resources of another company that could be substituted. Identifying potential matches is difficult, as it is based on knowledge that certain wastes can substitute certain resources. Capturing this knowledge in the form of waste-resource matching rules manually is time-consuming. Therefore, we argue that a Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based approach of semi-automatically extracting rules from domain-specific data sets could be a viable approach to solving this problem. The basic NLP problem to solve is to find similar concepts (synonyms), part-whole relationships (meronyms), and “is a” relationships (hyponyms). Synonyms are important for finding wastes and resources that are named differently but refer to the same object. For example, water and its chemical formula H₂O are often used interchangeably. Meronyms are part-whole relationships that may help to identify wastes with components that could be used as a resource. For example, methane is a component of natural gas. Hyponyms allow for building taxonomies. For example, wood is a kind of biomass. We present the results of an initial literature survey of algorithms that are able to find these relationships in large sets of unstructured text documents. Furthermore, we propose a research approach for further extending the literature survey and testing the existing algorithms on small test cases and a realistic matchmaking case. For future work, additional problems that fall into the NLP category can be addressed such as semi-automatically identifying processes for converting wastes into resources.

Innovation is an indispensable knowledge for performance improvement of companies. Whether innovation was limited in the past to R&D services for product development, companies are now willing to integrate the employee’s knowledge to extend the field of innovation to larger domains. In this study we propose a progressive model of innovation strategy relying on active participation and autonomy of employees for the expansion of ideas. We will describe the first steps of creation and implementation through a participative innovation project within a SME firm.

As products have to meet many different and contradictory requirements, product developers are facing major challenges. The fundamental prerequisite for developing successful products is to understand how desired product properties can be realized by setting appropriate product characteristics. The objective of this paper is to develop a software tool that supports product developers by visualizing the complex network of relations between properties and characteristics. This gives developers a better understanding of the many different relations in product models and can thus make more efficient and more targeted decisions.

This work is targeted towards achieving knowledge reuse by acquiring diagnostic knowledge about assembly from documents, and feeding it back for subsequent use in the design/assembly planning stage. Towards this objective, this paper looks at some challenges that have been identified in finding in text causal relations between issues and their causes. The analysis is carried out from the perspective of using the logical form of the text, which provides a computer-based representation of natural language text. By analyzing examples, a set of generalizations are made about the structure of possible classes into which text expressing both issues and causes may be classified. Then we show a simple example for which identifying the cause and effect is possible. However, we also show that it gets more difficult for more complex cases. Hence a method based on pattern matching in text is proposed and explained with further examples. Future directions are then discussed.

The experimentation helps in getting preliminary answers to inquiries that allows learning to happen in knowledge pursuit. Product centric organizations follow systematic as well as disorganized experimentation process for innovative product development. It is crucial activity for R&D value creation. Thus, cleverly conducting experiments and strategically looking into designers’ experimentation phenomenon can prove boon for designers. An effective experimentation driving strategy can help in many ways to unlock the potential of experimentation. The specific objectives of this paper are, (1) to descriptively understand, capture, and report designers’ experimentation phenomenon happening in realistic design environment; (2) to figure out decision-making constituents from experimentation process that leads to Go-No-Go decision making. The database collected from bangle packaging design project is systematically coded and analyzed to develop Combined IP-SR-GP theoretical model. The developed model is validated for its application by doing post facto analysis of packaging design cases. This paper will theoretically contribute towards advancement of designers’ experimental design thinking and look into decision-making constituents.

Automatic extraction of knowledge in modeling/enriching ontologies for domain specific applications play key role owing to the huge amount of data available in the form of documents. As manually extracting information is a tedious task, there is a need for automating this process. Use of automatic information extraction processes not only reduce the time, but also retrieves the information in a useful format. This paper proposes the use of parts of speech (POS) tagging, a Natural Language Processing (NLP) task, to group the words or entities in a text into pre-defined domain specific concepts. For the purpose of extraction, the domain concepts from available Engineering Ontology related to mechanical domain from the literature is considered. The methodology involves, parsing the text for POS tagging and then analyzing it, for grouping them into specific categories such as device, material and so on. Data required for automatic extraction is taken from various online sources describing the mechanical components, the material and process used for manufacturing those. As a start in using NLP techniques, automatic extraction of four domain concepts, device, material and process is addressed and the benefit of using it in automatic extraction of the conceptual information corresponding to an ontology is presented.

In the North Eastern Region (NER) of India, agriculture has been a source of livelihood for majority of the population. The farmers of the region practices two distinct types of farming namely Jhum cultivation and terrace cultivation. In spite of huge potential of the region for agricultural and horticultural produce, its productivity falls below the national average. Agriculture in the hilly areas of NER faces numerous challenges due to factors such as traditional farming methods, use of poorly designed tools, tough terrains, and also lack of good agricultural practices, irrigation, mechanization, power for mechanization, transportation networks etc. This research is to facilitate terrace farming through design intervention by designing an appropriate system. Initial challenge is to design tools that can be manually used and followed by tools that can be used with small engine to form terrace.

Miniaturization has inherited the necessity of micro-mechanism. Micro-motion devices are expected to deliver high positioning accuracy and potentially have wide applications in the industry such as development of Micro factories. A flexure based joint-less pantograph is designed as a mechanical amplifier to achieve a geometric amplification of input displacement for a linear positioning system. This arrangement is useful for achieving motion amplification for a precision actuator Piezo actuator. Design and manufacturing of such system is a challenging task and the important aspect of DFMA is considered. Guidelines are suggested for researchers who intend to develop similar setups. Macro scale Wire Electric Discharge Machine (WEDM) is used for manufacturing micro-mechanism. Concept ‘Do not fight with gravity’ is implemented in setup development. All constraints applied in simulation, are applied on the mechanism to replicate directional motion in the setup developed. The performance of mechanism was observed under a vision based system. Setup developed has been successfully used for the performance evaluation of compliant pantograph.

The Indian government announced that the country would adopt Bharat Stage VI (Euro VI) norms by 2020, skipping Euro V. In order to meet EU6 emission targets, the technologies which are available for Gasoline vehicles are; Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engine, Three-Way Catalytic Converter (TWC), Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) and Universal wide range oxygen sensors. The vehicles with diesel engines having Common Rail Direct Injection systems (CRDI) with variable fuel timing and metering strategies and Injection pressure is up to 2100 Bar, Variable Geometry Turbocharger (VGT), cooled high-pressure EGR, Diesel Oxidation Catalysts (DOC), diesel particulate Wall-flow type filter (DPF), Lean-NO_x Traps (LNT) technology (<3.0 L) [Sanchez et al., Estimated Cost of Emission Reduction Technologies for Light-Duty, 2012, 4], Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology (>3.0 L) are used in combination to control the emissions. For gasoline applications with high peak cylinder pressures (PCP) and high specific power output (kW/L), the pistons can include a cooling gallery and/or top ring groove reinforcement with Hard Anodising or Ring carrier. To handle the high loads and particulate matter that are being re-circulated into the engine cylinder due to exhaust gas recirculation system to control NO_x formation. Diesel engine pistons include features to enhance bowl rim life like TopCast or Bowl rim remelting is applied to refine the micro structure to achieve higher fatigue strength at elevated temperatures, and selective area Hard anodising. For very highly loaded applications, MAHLE Monotherm, Monoweld or Monolite Steel pistons are used.

The present work aims to design a novel mobility assistive device which incorporates an automated lifting technique following human sit-to-stand transfer trajectory. Experiments have been conducted to record the sit-to-stand trajectory for 10 different candidates using 3D motion capture cameras. Here, a pantograph mechanism is employed to replicate the sit-to-stand transfer trajectory. The mechanism is coupled to a structural framework which works as a walking assistive device post lifting. A prototype is fabricated to verify the design aspects of the device. For validation, the proposed design is simulated and analyzed for ergonomic consideration in a virtual CAD environment. Results in terms of body angles and comfort regions are shown at three different positions of the trajectory followed during the lift. The proposed device may help in the mobility of the patients during ambulatory care and the elderly by providing safety and preventing sudden fall, ensuring user comfort.

Thirty male school children from primary school, aged 12 years, were selected to carry backpacks of 10% body weight where 0% body weight was used as a baseline. Heart rate and blood pressure tests were conducted on the subjects. Subjects had walked on a treadmill for 20 min at each load condition at 1.1 m/s. This was done in both cases when subjects followed the normal pattern of packing and wearing and when they followed the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) recommendations. Heart rate was recorded before, during and 5 min after walking on treadmill whereas blood pressures were measured before and immediately after trial, and at 3 and 5 min after every trial. The results showed a significant difference in heart rate, blood pressure and its recovery for 10% body weight load conditions before and after recommendations. The packing, carrying, wearing of backpack should be done as per the AOTA guidelines.

To create unique selling points in the competitive market of medical radiography systems, systematic approaches for the development are required. In a case study, standard procedures from academia were adapted to the situation of the industry partner. Starting from a requirements list, a relation-oriented function modelling was built to develop concepts with morphological boxes, which were evaluated by a weighted average method. This lead to the elaboration of CAD-based drafts in order to enable more detailed ratings. The methodical approach results in the identification of redundant bearing parts in the floor attachment, the removal of which does not cause any violation of the safety regulations of medical products. A verification with finite element software proved the applicability of the concepts. This example demonstrates that in a situation of highly developed predecessors and a limited design space, a methodical approach can identify improvement possibilities, which leads to innovations and cost advantages.

The use of windmill has revolutionized renewable energy generation for people in communities, residing in remote areas that are not connected to the power grid. The gearbox, comprising planetary gear assembly, in the wind turbine, is a critical component in the structure and hence due care is to be taken in determining the design safety factor. This paper explores different optimisation techniques for analysing computer aided simulation data for obtaining the highest Safety Factor based on failure analysis, using experimental data of multiple design variables. Several design optimisation methodologies are used, namely, Taguchi Robust Design, Response Surface Methodology and Soft Computing Techniques etc. amongst others. It has been observed that optimality values differ, sometimes significantly, with the optimisation approach. An accurate comparison would provide the information regarding suitability of using a particular optimisation technique.

Driver distraction is the main cause of crashes and near-crash incidences all over the world. For conducting research on driver distraction various methodologies have been adopted by researchers as found in the literature. These methods follow driving performance metrics to assess the level of driver distraction. In the present paper, popularly used driver distraction assessment techniques (viz. ‘naturalistic driving study’, ‘driving simulator study’, ‘visual behaviour’, ‘visual occlusion”, ‘lane change task’, and ‘peripheral detection task’) have been reviewed with the main focus of demonstrating their effectiveness (accuracy), ease of use, efficiency (time required), advantages and disadvantages. It is expected that information presented in this review would be helpful for designers, engineers, and researchers to understand the superiority of one technique above another and would motivate them to perform empirical studies in this regard. The present review would also be beneficial for researchers to decide feasible and right technique or combination of techniques for their intended study on driver distraction.

Weight is a major limitation for the performance of an automobile. Increased weight results in poor acceleration, poor dynamics and reduced efficiency. Weight can be reduced by extensive use of composites which is expensive and requires a complete redesign of the vehicle. This paper aims to provide a systematic analysis by applying TRIZ to reduce the weight of Formula SAE (FSAE) Student Competition Vehicle. TRIZ ideas and analysis tool such as contradiction matrix are applied in order to discover some feasible and elegant solutions for reduction in weight. Study revealed that the problems of high weight are due to the poor design layout of the vehicle, redundancy in function and lack of systems approach. The main factors that lead to increase in weight are solved by applying contradiction matrix, and inventive changes such as dynamization, segmentation, parameter change are recommended. The study resulted 10% weight reduction in the overall weight of the vehicle.

Formula SAE (FSAE) student competition vehicle requires Quick Jack for lifting the vehicle for maintenance and repair. It also requires push bar for pushing vehicle into inspection bay and repair bay. Both quick jack and push bar have opposite functions. Function of Jack is to prevent vehicle motion where as the function of the push bar is to put the vehicle in motion. The aim was to combine the two functions into one product. This presents a contradiction of functions and separation in space. The paper shows application of TRIZ ideas such as separation in time, separation in space etc. and analysis tools such as function analysis, cause and effect chain analysis and contraction matrix to deliver functional and effective design to combine quick jack and push bar into one product. The result is elegant and simple toggle and lock mechanism which allows to quick jack and push bar into single product which meets both function.

This paper presents case study material relating to the application of a process of Human-Centred Design that draws upon Design Thinking for the development of medical products for rural Zambia. The underpinning method was developed in response to calls for the development of culturally and contextually appropriate medical product solutions as opposed to the current solution; directly imported products and methods from industrialised nations. The authors note the benefits and limitations of the approach taken, reflect on the resulting insights and provide recommendations for future studies.

Children spend long hours inside their classrooms which require them to continuously sit on the classroom furniture provided to them. 400 boys and girls school going children ranging in age from 4 to 14 years of government and private sponsored schools in Punjab were randomly selected for the study. A structured questionnaire was used for evaluating Musculoskeletal and other health problems of school children. The Faces Pain Scale—Revised and Visual analogue scale were used to measure pain intensity. The percentage of musculoskeletal pain and discomfort complained by subjects were Neck Pain 11%, Upper Back Pain 17.5%, Low Back Pain 14.75%, Upper Limb Pain 31%, Lower Limb Pain 33.25%, Sleep/dozy in classroom 14.25%, General Body Fatigue 35% and Any other discomfort 26%. Study concluded that classroom Furniture has significant impact on wellbeing of school children. This in order will help overcome the growing problems of poor posture found frequently among present day young generation.

In recent years, nano-structured hardfacing alloy constituting fine carbides, borides and boro-carbides have become spearhead in cutting edge producing enterprises because of their prevalent properties like excellent hardness, toughness and wear resistance even at elevated temperatures. Nano-structured hardfacing alloy was produced using manual metal arc welding technique. This paper has focused on wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) process identifies the influence of process parameters that affect the material removal rate, machining time and surface roughness while machining of nano-structured hardfacing alloy. The paramount process parameters have been employed during experiments such as discharge pulse time, discharge stop time, servo voltage, wire tension and wire feed rate. Experiments were designed using Taguchi’s L25 orthogonal array. Multi-objective optimization was performed using MOORA (multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis) method coupled with PCA (principal component analysis) to identify optimal process parameters. The outcome demonstrates that discharge pulse time (0.5 µs), discharge stop time (8 µs), servo voltage (35 V), wire tension (800 g) and wire feed rate (7 m/min) are the optimal process parameters using brass wire and for zinc coated brass wire that corresponds to discharge pulse time (0.5 µs), discharge stop time (8 µs), servo voltage (41 V), wire tension (500 g) and wire feed rate (7 m/min) respectively.

The current paper reports insights from user testing of a novel pictorial, free-of-cost, desktop-based communication aid, Jellow, developed at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay to enhance communication in nonverbal to minimally verbal children with developmental disabilities. We asked 7 typically developing school-age children to use the Jellow application to convey specific messages based on test scenarios during a structured usability evaluation. We coded for task success, time to completion, number of errors made, and number of prompts required for completing each of the ten test tasks. We also collected qualitative data on children’s satisfaction with various aspects of the application and their feedback on ways to improve the application. Quantitative and qualitative feedback from this study is currently being used to develop the next version of the application that will be tested with children with disabilities.

Interactions (i.e. modes of operations through which product development knowledge is generated and externalized in the design process) play a vital role in knowledge processes of product development. Intentional or unintentional changes in interactions could have a significant impact on the design process (impacting e.g. idea generation, costly rework, and time delay). Although the literature has emphasized the importance of various types of interactions, defining and studying interactions from various perspectives are largely missed. In this study, interactions were studied with the following parameters to incorporate various perspective views: multimodal interactions (verbal, graphical, gesture, text and combination), variety of interactions (tools combinations), variation of interactions (frequency of interactions change), collaboration (individual and working together), and designers’ movements and positions. Laboratory experiments in collocated and distributed set-ups were conducted using SmartboardTM and RhinoTM conceptual CAD software to study these parameters. This paper presents initial results from both original and redesign processes, and details follow-up research questions.

This paper explores the role of a conservation professional, as a design strategist in urban heritage management, through a case study approach of the ‘Heritage and People of Chandernagore’ Project. Chandernagore, an erstwhile French Town, is situated about 40 km north of Kolkata, along the Hooghly river. This project was an initiative of Aishwarya Tipnis Architects (ATA) supported by the Vieilles Maison Francaise (VMF), Paris. The project has pioneered in the use of digital technology and open source GIS mapping to ‘crowd source’ content through citizen engagement activities in order to spread awareness and disseminate information about the town’s heritage. It demonstrates challenges of a semi-urban community, especially with inclusivity in the use of social media for citizen engagement, and corresponding solutions that encourage grass root level initiatives like participatory mapping for maximum public involvement.

Service Designers envision, systematically plan and choreograph unique solutions. Design is a creative activity of problem solving to create desirable solutions. Service design is the natural extension of the design activity where multidisciplinary collaboration extends over a period. Hutchins developed a theory of distributed cognition, which redefined ‘information’ as the propagation of representational states of mediating structures of any complex system. This research paper presents observations from the organizational recruitment service case study, which displays the use of distributed cognition concepts in the service design process for a multidisciplinary team collaboration and recognizes the influence of non-human agents on service. During the case study, working in a team on the same artefacts, the artefacts played a role in supporting each other’s thought process through a mental structure of problems and solutions. It has implications on the design process and the artefacts generated.

This paper aims to promote discussion that inquiring through visual stimulation like prototypes add a new dimension to designing socially responsive artefacts. The social challenges are complex in nature and demands for creating responsive artifacts for addressing these issues The research promote discussions on the role a designer should adopt so as to establish desirable elements and attitude that respond to social design challenges. These attitudinal elements could work in addition to the existing tools and methodologies and may add to the process of co creation and design innovation. This research suggests that the designer should be working with the user on same plane for optimal development of a new approach. This framework was put to test and applied through industry sponsored social innovation challenge. The challenge was to “Design for affordable dental care for Indian masses”. A low cost dental chair was developed through this action research (How design-based research and action research contribute to the development of a new design for learning. Designs for Learning 4(2): 8–27 [1]). This paper focuses on the elements that model the role of the designer and impact of protecepting that encourage behavioral change. We describe “protocepting” as a tool of visual thinking among designers, users and clients to gain first hand experience of the existing and desired conditions. We illustrate value of protocepting in critical design research activities. Understanding existing scenarios.To develop a change in existing scenarios.To communicate design ideas/changed user interface.

The paper describes the process followed and the insights gained from a collaborative design project between design students in the UK and in India. The aim of the project centred on the design and development of new sustainable water solutions for users in both Ahmedabad and Cardiff. Reflections are given on the benefits and drawbacks of using such a collaborative design research model in terms of developing culturally appropriate solutions for two contexts of use; the effectiveness of prototyping and user testing remotely; and the benefits and challenges of undertaking a design research collaboration.

Handloom sector of Assam is one of the oldest as well as important sectors of this region. In Assam it is mostly accomplished as a home based industry. Hand-woven textile is practiced here both for commercial as well as domestic purpose. Apart from economic importance, the handloom and textile culture is also a part of traditional belief and practice. With the phase of time, the commercialization of traditional hand-woven textile has taken place. It has helped the weavers in earning a better livelihood and also in popularizing this craft. The textile craft has gone through some changes in modern context, like the design of the fabric, its development and also marketing. If we look into the current scenario, young designers, entrepreneurs, non-governmental and governmental organizations etc. are playing different roles in shaping this system. But it is really very important for us to understand about the benefits gained by the weavers. How is it actually helping the weaver’s community? Is it going to affect the cultural identity of the textile craft? How is it helping in economic development? The aim of this study is to answer certain questions, which are very important for a designer to understand before he/she performs any activity in this particular field. It is about knowing the importance of certain cultural elements. Designing is about improvising but it is important for a designer to retain the cultural identity of a product before bringing any changes. It is about understanding the current scenario regarding the contemporary practice of the handloom industries in Assam.

Innovative information representation in print and electronic media is an emerging field of effective communication design and human factors application. This paper deals with means and methods of constructing media reality as perceived by users with reference to the reporting of violence in Northeast India. Design research has many fold emphasis that includes the responsibility of creating a positive motivation to its intended users’ when it comes to communicating information. The present study looks into various elements for developing a structured process of representation in media. It requires balancing the mirror reflex kind of imaging and abstraction. An exploratory inquiry into the procedure and criteria that goes behind the production of news content representing Northeast; criteria and strategies that media practitioners employ to make relevant judgments regarding information collection, production, projection and presentation formats, was conducted on 112 respondents from the media fraternity and consumers of media as a researcher as well as working journalist. In trying to figure out the frame work for positive imaging and representation of events other than violence only in communicating through the media world, from the derived responses an attempt was made to evaluate if such system can be practiced, feasibility studied. Media houses are required to have a design evaluation and research section that may guide graphical and layout representation patterns. Active media audiences may be open to accepting and interacting to information and not media created negativism. News representation falls under the periphery of communication design, and design is considered to be the process of changing current situation to a preferred one. In this context it needs to be addressed that how much media representation of violence is performing towards the goal of betterment of the society.

Agents, artifacts and environment together constitute an interconnected, and interdependent social system beleaguered with complex palimpsest of concerns. How can design thinking visualize the contradictory and controversial nature of matters of concern, where perspectives and stakes are unequal, contesting and conflicting, but with inter dependencies, not all of which are entirely predictable? Prompted by advancing technology and increasing complexity of the design inquiry, role of the user in negotiating such contestations has lately been in flux. Increasingly, the user is perceived not as a mere consumer driven by immediate self-serving gains, but as an inter-dependent actor negotiating for an empowering and equitable solution for all. This necessitates the exploration of how blurring of strict boundaries between user, designer, and a social agent is diluting dichotomies between user/designer, social-worker/capitalist, consumer/producer, use/profit, or need/desire. Hence, this paper is an epistemic inquiry into the trajectory of user participation in responsible decision-making through the analysis of six design frameworks holding different kinds and extents of social accountability. Thereby seeking, twofold objectives: (a) to establish the theoretical antecedents of user participation in design for social responsibility, and (b) to assess the future of responsible design decisions in discourse and practice .

Nowadays, the companies’ data sources are multiple, large and complex. That’s why the difficulty is not to collect data, but to make them available in the right form at the right time and for the right person who will exploit and benefit from their added value. There is a need to analyze data in order to have a global vision and to create, from the raw data of the company, an operational and profitable information helping project monitoring and decision making. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to propose an approach to support decision making processes. This approach implemented thanks to an Information Technology (IT) architecture, combines three business process modules (multiple actors and data sources). Our main objectives are to extract Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) from different data sources and to visualize them using Business Intelligence (BI) techniques (precisely data visualization techniques and dashboarding). Our approach is finally illustrated by an implementation on a case study.