- Title
- Understanding the changes of designers’ behaviours when using mixed media design environments
- Creator
- Shih, Yi Teng
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2018
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Designers’ interactions with design media have shifted from individual to multiple design media to improve design activities and outcomes. This transition is mainly in response to the increased globalisation of design projects. However, many mixed media studies have adopted a linear approach and focused on evaluating design solutions from different design media as opposed to design processes. Different uses of design media during designing may influence designers’ cognition and design processes. In previous mixed media empirical studies, designers were asked to initially use traditional sketching before shifting to CAD modelling. For the purpose of the study, this use of mixed media, in which one shift between media occurs, is defined as Sequential Mixed Media (SMM). However, designers prefer to interact freely between media, alternating between sketching and CAD modelling as it suits them. This approach is termed Alternative Mixed Media (AMM) and is currently the most popular among designers and design students. This study seeks to address a lack of evaluation with the AMM approach by investigating the impacts of switching between different design media on designers' cognition and creative design processes. Literature about design activities in mixed media environments mainly focuses on design outcomes using SMM. There have been few AMM studies that explore the roles of sketching and CAD modelling and how switching behaviours impact on designers’ cognition and creative design processes. This study compares two different approaches of interacting with sketching and CAD modelling (SMM versus AMM) to elucidate how switching behaviours impact on designers’ cognition and creative design processes. Many studies show that protocol analysis is effective in recording designers’ reasoning during the design process. Research questions about whether switching behaviours impact on designers’ cognition and creative design processes remain unanswered. Protocol analysis was used to facilitate controlled observations and experimental analyses to investigate the research questions and objectives. The main study contains three parts: the SMM study, the AMM study, and SMM versus AMM study. The results of the SMM study with four participants show that dissatisfaction with sketches resulted in CAD modelling being used to support conceptual design. Being dissatisfied with sketches, the whole CAD design phase became uncertain. This played a key role driving designers to new solutions and involved considerable cognitive effort on evaluation. The results of the AMM study with six participants show that both sketching and CAD modelling play a markedly similar role. A switching behaviour model was proposed containing eyes’ switching, single switching and integrated switching. These behaviours appropriately supported designers in the design process. Concept-level switching behaviour can integrate two design media into one design medium. Concept-level switching behaviour has considerable potential to transform design processes into creative design processes. The results of the SMM versus AMM study with eight participants show that there is no significant difference between sketching and CAD modelling. One of the difficulties experienced was that the think-aloud method used to collect data was unable to capture participants’ thoughts about switches because each switch takes only a few milliseconds. Participants were subsequently interviewed about each switch and reminded about their design activities using video recordings. Their reflections were collected on completion of their design tasks. Six of the eight participants strongly believed that switching behaviour is essential to use the advantages of both media, and to use each one to counter the weaknesses of the other. This research is a thesis by publication, comprising an introduction, literature review, methodology, discussion, conclusion, and seven publications. Paper One provides the framework and identifies a gap for a mixed media design study that developed as part of the overall study. Paper Two expands upon the literature reviewed in Paper One. It covers different types of design media research and focusses on switching behaviour in mixed media design environments. Paper Three builds upon the research design section described in Paper Two and reports the conduct of a pilot study. Paper Four expands on Paper Three to solidify the preliminary outcomes. Paper Five further explores Paper Four involving four designers to focus on the roles of design media using the SMM approach as part of a main study. Paper Five expands upon Paper Four involving six participants using the AMM approach to solidify the analysis of design activities as well as of switching behaviours as a part of the main study. Paper Seven expands upon Paper Five and Paper Six to solidify the main study outcomes involving eight participants using both SMM and AMM approaches. The outcomes are discussed in relation to two aspects: the roles of design media and designers' reflections. This study used two approaches in this mixed media research: the SMM and AMM. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of switching behaviours on designers’ cognition and creative design processes. The SMM approach was conducted as a baseline to compare participants’ design activities and their reflections. Based on the reflections, switching behaviours not only allowed for a more accurate testing of conceptual sketches but also facilitated the enhancement of designs. Switching behaviours were found to support designers by allowing them to: (i) make appropriate design decisions; (ii) enhance co-evolution; and (iii) provide a natural design workflow. Based on an analysis of design activities, switching behaviours supported designers’ perceptions, media and concept levels during their design activities.
- Subject
- mixed media; protocol analysis; designers' behaviours; thesis by publication
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1388150
- Identifier
- uon:32731
- Rights
- Copyright 2018 Yi Teng Shih
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 15 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 220 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |