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This study aims to understand the main issues in design education and discuss solutions. We conducted two workshops on the state of implementation of design in the Singaporean education system at the Design Education Summit, a conference for educators. We found that the main issues were the inclusion of design education within curriculum and change of stakeholder mindsets. Several solutions were discussed, such as ways to introduce design as part of the organization culture. We summarize results into action items and recommendations.

Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in Singapore was set up in January 2010 to tackle global challenges of the 21st century and beyond. To truly address human-centric issues and problems, a design-focused curriculum using an outside-in approach was adopted in formulating its undergraduate degree programmes in engineering and architecture. This has led to the formation of degree programmes focusing on products, services, systems and built environment which the world needs. To break down the silo mentality and promote multidisciplinary education, SUTD adopts a very forward-looking approach in its academic structure in which majors are offered by four multidisciplinary pillars, supported by two clusters. The absence of conventional colleges, faculties, departments and even divisions encourages seamless and boundaryless collaboration in education and research across all pillars and clusters. With a strong focus on Big-Design (i.e., Big-D) throughout and across courses, semesters and domain areas, undergraduate students are well equipped with skills and attitudes through 20 to 35 team-based Big-D projects during their undergraduate education to provide learning experiences beyond book knowledge, preparing them well with various soft skills such as creativity, critical thinking, teamwork and others before embarking on their career in industry. Coupled with small group-cum-active or peer-to-peer learning in a dedicated cohort classroom environment, the SUTD undergraduate programme further encourages students by having them collaborate with each other across pillars to foster teamwork and a collaborative spirit in formulating and sharing solutions beyond the team. Besides being recognized by the "Global State-of-the-Art in Engineering Education" report commissioned by the MIT School of Engineering [1] as the top of the emerging leader in engineering education recently, the response from industry for the first 5 batches of undergraduates has been very positive.

Traditionally, design opportunities and directions are conceived based on expertise, intuition, or time-consuming user studies and marketing research at the fuzzy front end of the design process. Herein, we propose the use of the total technology space map (TSM) as a visual ideation aid for rapidly conceiving high-level design opportunities. The map is comprised of various technology domains positioned according to knowledge proximity, which is measured based on a large quantity of patent data. It provides a systematic picture of the total technology space to enable stimulated ideation beyond the designer's knowledge. Designers can browse the map and navigate various technologies to conceive new design opportunities that relate different technologies across the space. We demonstrate the process of using TSM as a rapid ideation aid and then analyze its applications in two experiments to show its effectiveness and limitations. Furthermore, we have developed a cloud-based system for computer-aided ideation, that is, InnoGPS, to integrate interactive map browsing for conceiving high-level design opportunities with domain-specific patent retrieval for stimulating concrete technical concepts, and to potentially embed machine-learning and artificial intelligence in the map-aided ideation process.

Function modelling is proposed in the literature from different disciplines, in interdisciplinary approaches, and used in practice with the intention of facilitating system conceptualisation. However, function models across disciplines are largely diverse addressing different function modelling perspectives and using different structures and forms for representing the contained information. This hampers the exchange of information between the models and poses particular challenges to joint modelling and shared comprehension between designers from different disciplines. This article proposes an integrated function modelling framework, which specifically aims at relating between the different function modelling perspectives prominently addressed in different disciplines. It uses interlinked matrices based on the concept of DSM and MDM in order to facilitate cross-disciplinary modelling and analysis of the functionality of a system. The article further presents the application of the framework based on a product example. Finally, an empirical study in industry is presented. Therein, feedback on the potential of the proposed framework to support interdisciplinary design practice as well as on areas of further improvement has been obtained from participants working in industry.

Design fixation is a phenomenon with important significance to many fields of design due to the potential negative impacts it may have in design outcomes, especially during the ideation stage of the design process. The present study aims to provide a framework for understanding, or at least probing, design fixation by presenting a review of existing defixation approaches, as well as metrics that have been employed to understand and account for design fixation. This study also describes the results of two design by analogy (DbA) methods, WordTree and SCAMPER, to overcome design fixation in an experiment that involved 97 knowledge-domain experts. The study outcomes are at least twofold: a common framework of metrics and approaches to overcome design fixation in a wide range of design problems and nonintuitive results for DbA approaches in design fixation and other related creativity metrics. The application of WordTree and SCAMPER shows that both methods yield increased novelty compared to a control, where the SCAMPER results are significantly higher than WordTree. It is also found that WordTree mitigates design fixation whereas SCAMPER appears to be ineffective for this purpose but effective to generate an increased quantity of novel ideas. These results demonstrate that both DbA methods provide de-fixation capabilities and enhance designers’ creativity during idea generation.

Given the unprecedented challenges imposed on the aviation industry by the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper proposes a new perspective on airport user experience as a field of study to unlock its potential as a basis for strategic roadmapping. Through an integrative literature review, this study points out a dominant focus, in practice and research, on customer experience and service quality, as opposed to user experience, to help airports gain a competitive edge in an increasingly commoditized industry. The review highlights several issues with this understanding of experience, as users other than passengers, such as employees, working for the airport and its myriad stakeholders, as well as visitors, are largely omitted from study. Given the complexity of the system, operationally, passengers are generally reduced to smooth flows of a passive mass, which this study argues is both a missed opportunity and a vulnerability exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Major events apart from COVID-19 are used to show the negative effects this simplification of user experience has had. Based on solutions and models proposed in previous studies, a conceptual model has been developed to illustrate the postulated potential of a deeper and more holistic study of airport user experience to make airport systems generally more agile, flexible and future-proof. As such, the paper advocates to utilize the user experience as a basis for strategic planning to equip airports with the know-how to manage not just daily operations more effectively but also the aftermath of and recovery from major events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, with the user experience at the center of the strategic roadmap, airports can plan ahead to mitigate the impact of future scenarios. The importance of future research and the use of existing research are discussed., Highlights • Airport user experience has been proposed as a key strategic planning tool for post-COVID Aviation. • Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity environments require systemic focus. • Study highlights ‘passenger experience’ dominated the discourse in the past. • A conceptual model has been developed to present the potential of the Airport User Experience. • Flexible and resilient systems planning must focus on airport as the 'experience providers’ for all users.

Past work has demonstrated that simulating an extraordinary user scenario could have an impact on increasing designer empathy and creativity. It is likely, however, that an individual’s background could make a difference on how such simulated scenarios influence designers and how well the design method works. In this paper, we study the impact of demography and personal connection of the participants to any given simulated scenario versus their response to different empathic simulation workshops. With a variety of design tools and techniques available, understanding such influencing factors could help designers decide on the appropriate design tool for effective ideation. In this study, we investigated the effect of 81 (49 female and 32 male) users from three different workshops that simulated three different extraordinary user scenarios. Results of the study show that personal connection to a population being simulated significantly affects the impact a simulated scenario has on evoking creativity and empathy. And, for the given set of participants, gender did not show significant impact on the participants’ response.

The paper presents an evaluation study for a DSM-based function modeling framework with practitioners in industry. Questionnaires and open discussion are used in a workshop format to obtain feedback on the framework’s usefulness and practical applicability. It allows flexibly adaptive modeling multiple, inter-related views onto the functionality of (interdisciplinary) systems. The findings suggests a large potential for the framework to support cross-disciplinary design and for using the inherent matrices to do function analysis. The paper highlights the views of the practitioners on the strengths and potentials for further improvement.

There is still much to learn about the mechanisms and interactions by which psychological and cognitive factors influence creative performance in design, and more explicitly in design’s ideation stage. The present study aims to explore such influences for Design by Analogy (DbA) ideation methods. 69 participants from 52 companies in Mexico and Singapore executed two ideation sessions (phase I and phase II) to generate solution ideas for a service design problem (same design problem was used for both phases). Between the two phases participants were assigned and trained with one of three selected ideation conditions: Control, WordTree and SCAMPER. Finally, they were asked to self-evaluate 11 factors that may influence their creative performance. The explored factors comprised individual, performance self-perception and contextual factors. Individual factors are considered with respect to the ideation activity and the design problem. In the case of the ideation activity evaluated factors are: entertainment (boring-fun), motivation, inspiration and easiness (difficult-easy). For the design problem, interest, easiness and inspiration are considered. Performance self-perception factors are: commitment (minimal effort-hard work), concentration (unfocused-focused) and level of success (unsuccessful-successful). Lastly, the Contextual factor considered is the self-perceived relation of time with respect to ideas. Two main analyses are presented and discussed in this article: the effect of learning and applying DbA ideation methods on participants’ factor self-evaluation, and; the relationship between the 11 self-evaluated factors and creative performance using the metrics of Fluency, Novelty and Fixation.Copyright © 2015 by ASME

This paper presents a framework consisting of a mathematical model and an algorithm for representation, analysis and exploration of the design space in redesign problems. The framework develops and extends the existing formalism of the Characteristics Properties Model (CPM) and Property Driven Design (PDD). A platform independent quantitative model based on formal log-ic is presented to map the characteristics and properties, as well as the relations and dependencies between them, along with solution conditions. The model is based on generalization of existing mathematical design models and is support-ed by the development of an algorithm enabling property driven design. The re-sulting framework offers a rich and flexible syntax and vocabulary along with a mathematical and computational tool applicable to mechanical product design.; International audience; This paper presents a framework consisting of a mathematical model and an algorithm for representation, analysis and exploration of the design space in redesign problems. The framework develops and extends the existing formalism of the Characteristics Properties Model (CPM) and Property Driven Design (PDD). A platform independent quantitative model based on formal log-ic is presented to map the characteristics and properties, as well as the relations and dependencies between them, along with solution conditions. The model is based on generalization of existing mathematical design models and is support-ed by the development of an algorithm enabling property driven design. The re-sulting framework offers a rich and flexible syntax and vocabulary along with a mathematical and computational tool applicable to mechanical product design.

As designs exist to satisfy some purpose or function, knowledge of functionality is essential in a wide variety of designrelated activities, including generation and modification of designs, comparison, evaluation and selection of designs, and explanation, diagnosis or repair of designs. Functional modelling refers to a wide variety of approaches to model a design and its requirements from its functional aspects so as to allow reasoning about its functionality for various activities such as the above.

Germany has an international reputation for the high quality of its engineering products. This is due in part to placing great emphasis on engineering design and according high status to engineering designers.

The paper proposes a modular functional modeling framework, which aims at integrating the different functional modeling perspectives, relevant to different disciplines. The results of two extensive literature studies on diverse functional modeling approaches proposed in a variety of disciplines are consolidated. These studies identified specific needs for an integrated functional modeling approach to support interdisciplinary conceptual design. The presented framework aims at fulfilling these needs. It consists of a variety of associated views, represented through different matrices. This matrix-based representation facilitates the analysis of different functional modeling perspectives and their interdependencies. Finally, the implications of the presented approach are discussed.

Interdisciplinary system development requires the integration of diverse expertise to combine different engineering technologies and—increasingly often—services, in order to provide users with expected value and desired functionality in newly developed products. Failure to achieve integration of disciplines can result in design errors posing a direct threat to the users and to the company. Function modelling is expected to provide suitable means for the integration of disciplines early in the development process. However, a plethora of function models can be found within different disciplines or even across, and their divergence has proven to hamper shared, cross-disciplinary function modelling in design teams. This article presents research on function modelling in different disciplines in practice. Conducted research comprises empirical studies in ten companies developing mechatronic systems and/or Product-Service Systems in diverse market areas. The studies provide insights into the utilisation of different function models in different disciplines and across, as well as the specific needs and preferences of practicing designers regarding interdisciplinary function modelling. Finally, the obtained insights and their implications for supporting interdisciplinary function modelling are being discussed. Indications are derived which may guide future research endeavours pertaining to the development of support for collaborative, (cross-)disciplinary function modelling.