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Visual references are used to communicate product mode-of-use, product qualities and functions to consumers. In this paper we present the effects on apparent usability when designers apply visual references across different product categories to three life-saving medical devices. To illustrate the effects of borrowing visual references across product categories we chose three life-saving auto-injectors used to treat anaphylaxis. Participants were asked to identify the product category to which the auto-injector belongs and respond to statements about the auto-injectors' mode-of-use on a nine-point Likert scale. The statements represented a combination of correct and incorrect interactions required to successfully administer the life-saving adrenaline to a patient. A bivariate correlation showed a strong positive correlation with correct use when the auto-injectors are perceived as belonging to a medical product category. This paper presents findings on how visual references are misapplied to life-saving auto-injectors, leading to ambiguity in use and the potential for death.

Concept assessment of dissimilar engineering systems can be achieved by applying a function centric approach in order to quantitatively compare multifaceted entities. This research applied the function integrity diagnosis and documentation (FIDD) method to investigate the Function Integrity indicator (FIi) in an engineering change project with a public transport service provider. Two alternative design concepts were modelled using the integrated function modelling (IFM) framework and analysed for risk to function fulfilment. This case finds that the FIDD method supported engineering designers to compile discipline and domain specific information to inform system level decision making based on function integrity. Further implications for application and method development are discussed.

Engineering students need creative thinking skills to achieve innovation. This study focuses on ameliorating the creative process in engineering design units with the purpose of getting more creative and innovative engineering design solutions from students and better preparing them for industry and real-life conditions. It is suggested that engineering should use design pedagogy as a model for ameliorating creativity. The research is carried out using qualitative investigation. The study used triangulation to collect data about engineering educators’ approach, understanding and beliefs about creativity using observational research, a survey and in-depth interviews both with students and with educators. The study used an interpretive approach for data analysis by following the levels of understanding in an organizational culture. Three main results drawn from this work are as follows: (1) Engineering educators should understand the practice of creativity in an educational context. (2) Engineering educators need to value creativity as an important part of engineering design. (3) The discipline needs to value creativity as a core part of the curriculum.The findings suggests that enriching creativity in engineering education is not feasible until engineering instructors comprehend and embrace the use of creativity in the classroom. This article specifically explores ways of integrating creativity in engineering design processes that took place in a mechanical engineering undergraduate programme – with an expectation that the research can be used as an exemplar for other engineering disciplines to learn from. This study is an important step, with a holistic approach, in suggesting creativity and creative thinking be inherent and an integral part of every engineering curriculum.

This study explores the role of typicality and novelty in influencing the aesthetic preference for industrial products. Typicality and novelty’s effects on the aesthetic responses of designed objects have gained interest in the field of experimental aesthetics over the past decades, with a wide support towards the ‘Most Advanced Yet Acceptable’ (MAYA) principle. What is yet to be discovered is how both typicality and novelty influence the aesthetic preference for industrial products such as industrial machineries. Three industrial product categories that vary in their degree of functionality and decorativeness were identified including highly functional and low-decorativeness products, equally functional and decorative products and low-functional and highly decorative products. Online evaluations using 7-point Likert scales were distributed to participants from Australia and the Republic of China. An empirically validated scale for aesthetic preference, ‘Pleasing to See’ was employed in the evaluation. The empirical results show that typicality and novelty affect and influence the aesthetic preference differently across the tested industrial product categories. Given the findings, a quantifiable evaluation method that can benefit the product design industry especially in testing design concepts of industrial products is proposed. It is intended that the evaluative measures could help minimize the risks related to production, leading to an increased and transformed value of industrial products’ marketability.

AbstractIn recent times the Papua New Guinea (PNG) balsa wood industry has increased in global volume and value, offering employment to a significant number of individuals in East New Britain (ENB) Province. The PNG balsa industry previously relied on China’s renewable wind energy industry for rotor blade manufacturing, which was claimed to be the largest consumer of processed balsa from PNG. Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) the Chinese demand for PNG balsa has significantly reduced, resulting in a mass over-supply and under-demand for the PNG resource. A lack of design innovation has added to the current market conundrum and left many smallholders unable to sell their balsa, leading to widespread financial hardship. It has come to the attention of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and many stakeholders that if there are no new applications for balsa there is no point continuing to grow the resource for a market that is not consuming it. Design innovation generated through research-led industrial design practice is argued as a key element in value-adding to the PNG balsa industry and smallholder businesses. The use of research to inform the design process and generate design innovation is demonstrated through a case study as an attempt to rectify the current over-supply and under-demand.

Materials Science typically engages research expertise from fields such as engineering, chemistry and physics. This paper will examine how industrial design successfully contributed to timber materials science in the initial phases of basic research. Research from two PhD studies, completed in conjunction with the Australian Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Wood Innovations, will be used as case studies. These case studies discuss examples from research projects investigating new Microwave Modified Timber (MMT) materials development along with surface modified timber. Findings concur that industrial design research was beneficial to early scientific experiments.

Industrial design, unlike its counterpart fields in the product design process such as engineering and material science, is a recent player in the field of academic higher education. In many schools of design, industrial design remains a vocational art form rather than an industry ready research-based field. Collaborative research centers (CRC) in Australia bring different disciplines together to work on government and industry funded projects and here industrial design has begun to play a role. Such projects are often tied to PhD programs for individuals lead by more experienced research and industry experts. It is in such a multidisciplinary context where industrial design can prove its academic credibility and help further its legitimacy as an industry oriented research process. Following a review of the disciplinary rise of industrial design and the nature of the CRC environment the second part of this paper addresses the experience of a recent industrial design doctoral candidate working simultaneously on design and science oriented aspects of a timber research project. The successful outcome of the project leads to conclusions about the development of industrial design as an academic discipline and the capacity of the field to both lead and learn in this environment