Experimental Design Research: Approaches, Perspectives, Applications

273 Pages·2016·8.98 MB·English

by  Philip Cash

Philip Cash · Tino Stanković
Mario Štorga Editors
Experimental
Design
Research
Approaches, Perspectives, Applications
Experimental Design Research
Philip Cash · Tino Stankovic´ · Mario Štorga
Editors
Experimental Design
Research
Approaches, Perspectives, Applications
1 3
Editors
Philip Cash Mario Štorga
Department of Management Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Engineering and Naval Architecture
Technical University of Denmark University of Zagreb
Lyngby Zagreb
Denmark Croatia
Tino Stankovic´
Engineering Design and Computing
Laboratory
Department of Mechanical
and Process Engineering
Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology Zurich
Zurich
Switzerland
ISBN 978-3-319-33779-1 ISBN 978-3-319-33781-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33781-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016938384
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Foreword
That design research is difficult to undertake is a self-evident truism. This book’s
unique role is to help researchers with this difficult task by giving a theoretical
and practical understanding of the key issues. Design research has established that
design is an activity or process, whether undertaken individually, in local teams
or in widely distributed groups, which can be managed, controlled and supported.
However, the detailed understanding that will lead to further insights and innova-
tive support approaches across the process can only be achieved by more extensive
and rigorous experimental design research.
It is useful to contrast it with the classical scientific method. The Oxford
English Dictionary defines the scientific method as “a method or procedure that
has characterized science since the seventeenth century, consisting of system-
atic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and
modification of hypotheses.” This definition can be extended, albeit in a simplified
form, as conceive a hypothesis or generate a theory, in conjunction with under-
taking some background contextual investigation or some modelling, construct an
experimental approach, perhaps with well-instrumented test rigs and then conduct
a series of experiments with a detailed control of key variables and then compare
the results with the theory or the analytical models and draw some conclusions.
These approaches are recorded, published and crucially are capable or should be
capable of being repeated.
The classical scientific method relies on the control of the experimental envi-
ronment and it relies on the control of key variables. This is very difficult to
achieve in design research when the experimental environment might be an engi-
neering design office or meeting room or design studio or even an individual’s
workspace, and then there are the two key variables. First the engineer or designer
or multidisciplinary team being investigated will have varying amounts of experi-
ence, training, abilities and so on. The second key variable being the actual task.
This creation of the design is undertaken at varying levels of abstraction and
detail. Is it on paper, in the computer modelling environment or an actual artefact
or machine or system?
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Thus when undertaking design research it is not possible to replicate the clas-
sical approach and new approaches are required. It may be necessary to incorpo-
rate other research approaches that come from psychology, management and other
human focused research to create a research method or a variety of methods that
work and produce credible and valuable results in this difficult area of design.
Thus this book is a remarkable attempt to bring together a number of key
strands in this very challenging area. It is a treasure trove of insights and tech-
niques. It is particularly helpful that it includes some detailed discussions about
the theoretical basis for design research and picks up some key themes, such as the
interplay between methods and methodology and links together a number of key
perspectives.
It also starts the discussion about establishing standards in design research,
something that will be very important to increase the levels of rigour in what is
effectively a new discipline. It is always important to point out to researchers in
the design area that Sir Isaac Newton published Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia
Mathematica in 1687 and the early work of Taylor on Manufacturing and
Management disciplines was first published in 1900!
This book is valuable in that it brings together the state of the art, but the key
contribution is the structure and synthesis that the editors have put into the com-
pilation of the work. Thus the four key areas are made clear and explained. These
are the foundations, classical approaches, computational approaches and the issues
associated with building theories and creating genuine, valuable and useable
knowledge. As an aside, the section on computational approaches is particularly
interesting and valuable in that it reflects the way that engineers and design-
ers work and anticipates the way that design research will be conducted in future
years.
It is through books like this that rigour can continue to increase and standard
approaches can be created as it is though rigour and standard approaches that
the body of knowledge can increase and be linked together and raw data can be
shared. This will give the results of design research real credibility and real trac-
tion to practitioners of all sorts. The book thus represents a real contribution and is
not only an invaluable basic text for researchers but also an important step on the
way to understanding this topic called design.
Prof. Stephen Culley
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Bath
UK
Preface
This book’s origins lie in the editors’ own experiences of developing and reviewing
experimental studies of design; and in particular, from our collaborative excitement
when combining new methods and disciplinary insights with more traditional exper-
imental design research.
Researchers face ever-growing technical, methodological, and theoretical possi-
bilities and we have found in our own research, as well as that of our students, that
getting to grips with these topics can prove somewhat daunting. This book aims to
both help researchers share in our enthusiasm for experimental design research,
and provide practical support in bringing together the many different perspectives
and methods available to develop scientifically robust and impactful experimental
studies.
Fundamentally, this book builds on the methodological foundations laid down
by many authors in the design research field, as well as our field’s long tradition
of boundary spanning empirical studies. Without these works this book would not
have been possible. In this sense each chapter reflects and builds on key thinking
in the design research field in order to provide the reader with chapters that not
only constitute distinct research contributions in their own right but also help bring
cohesive insight into experimental design research as a whole.
Throughout the writing process our focus has continually been on bringing
together insights for researchers both young and established, with the aim to take
experimental design research to the next level of scientific development. In par-
ticular it is not our aim to lay down a prescriptive set of methodological rules, but
rather provide researchers with the concepts, paradigms and means they need to
understand, bridge and build on the many research methodologies and methods in
this domain. Thus this book forms a bridge between specific methods and wider
methodology in order to both develop better methods and also contextualise their
work in the wider methodological landscape.
Over the last decades design research has grown as a field in terms of both its
scientific and industrial significance. However, with this growth has come with
challenges of scientific rigour, integrating diverse empirical and experimental
approaches, and building wider scientific impact outside of design research. We see
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viii Preface
this book as a contribution to this process of scientific and methodological develop-
ment, and more generally see this process of growth as a necessary and inspiring
development taking design research into the future alongside its more fundamen-
tal brethren, such as psychology, artificial intelligence or biotechnology. This book
reflects our vision of design research as an ever more rigorous and scientifically
exciting field, and we think that this is also reflected in the substantial and insight-
ful works provided by each of the chapter authors, without whom this book would
have been impossible!
Philip Cash
Tino Stankovic´
Mario Štorga
Contents
Part I The Foundations of Experimental Design Research
1 An Introduction to Experimental Design Research ............... 3
Philip Cash, Tino Stanković and Mario Štorga
2 Evaluation of Empirical Design Studies and Metrics ............. 13
Mahmoud Dinar, Joshua D. Summers, Jami Shah
and Yong-Seok Park
3 Quantitative Research Principles and Methods
for Human-Focused Research in Engineering Design ............. 41
Mark A. Robinson
Part II Classical Approaches to Experimental Design Research
4 Creativity in Individual Design Work .......................... 67
Yukari Nagai
5 Methods for Studying Collaborative Design Thinking ............ 83
Andy Dong and Maaike Kleinsmann
6 The Integration of Quantitative Biometric Measures
and Experimental Design Research ............................ 97
Quentin Lohmeyer and Mirko Meboldt
7 Integration of User-Centric Psychological and Neuroscience
Perspectives in Experimental Design Research .................. 113
Claus-Christian Carbon
Part III Computation Approaches to Experimental Design Research
8 The Complexity of Design Networks: Structure and Dynamics ..... 129
Dan Braha
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9 Using Network Science to Support Design Research:
From Counting to Connecting ................................ 153
Pedro Parraguez and Anja Maier
10 Computational Modelling of Teamwork in Design ............... 173
Ricardo Sosa
11 Human and Computational Approaches for Design
Problem-Solving ........................................... 187
Paul Egan and Jonathan Cagan
Part IV Building on Experimental Design Research
12 Theory Building in Experimental Design Research ............... 209
Imre Horváth
13 Synthesizing Knowledge in Design Research .................... 233
Kalle A. Piirainen
14 Scientific Models from Empirical Design Research ............... 253
John S. Gero and Jeff W.T. Kan