Designing with precedents

Designing with precedents

Pasman, G.

Hennessey, J.M. (promotor)
Stappers, P.J. (promotor)

Design, Engineering and Production

2003-06-30

Every year designers are challenged to generate new and unique product forms. Often, the design and form of previous products constitutes a basis for the generation of new ones. What role then do existing products play in the generation and development of new product forms? How can this role be influenced by means of new design techniques? And how can these techniques be supported by means of a design support tool? These three questions have directed the research in this thesis. In a first study interviews with designers were conducted to map the context in which new product forms are being created. Based on a review of the literature, a theoretical framework was then constructed to describe the possible role of "the old" in the creation of the "new". This framework was then made specific for the form-creation phase of the product design process. The assumptions underlying the framework were then tested in a design experiment. This was followed by another experiment, in which designers were studied while arranging, grouping and naming collections of existing products, in order to identify their classification behavior. The results of these studies were then integrated into the design of a user interface for a visual database of product samples. The interface is based on a new interaction technique for both indexing samples into the database and retrieving samples from the database. Finally, a fully functional prototype of the interface was built and tested in an educational setting.

design methodology
interaction design
design tools
product design

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Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

(c) 2003 G. Pasman