The increasingly transdisciplinary context of design, where designers collaborate with other disciplinary and domain experts, means there is a growing need to evidence the effectiveness of design methods. We address this need in two ways. First, we propose a ‘chain of evidence’, from motivation to claims, operationalising this in a systematic assessment framework. Second, we systematically review current design method research. Our results reveal that while all links in the chain of evidence are reported across the literature and best practices can be identified, no individual paper either reports all links or consistently achieves best practice. Our framework and results demonstrate the need for standards of evidence in this area, with implications for design method research, development, education, and practice.

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Designers often face situations where the only way forward is through the exploration of possibilities. However, there is a critical disconnect between understanding of how designer's think and act in such situations. We address this disconnect by proposing and testing (via protocol analysis) the cognitive co-evolution model. Our model comprises a new approach to co-evolutionary design theory by explaining both the progression of the process itself and the creation of design outputs via an interplay between metacognitive perceived uncertainty, cognition, and the external world. We thus connect explanations of how designers think with descriptions of how they act. We provide a foundation for connecting to other theories, models, and questions in design research via common links to cognition and metacognition.

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Ideation is simultaneously one of the most investigated and most intriguing aspects of design. The reasons for this attention are partly due to its importance in design and innovation, and partly due to an array of conflicting results and explanations. In this study, we develop an integrative perspective on individual ideation by combining cognitive and process-based views via dual-process theory. We present a protocol and network analysis of 31 ideation sessions, based on novice designers working individually, revealing the emergence of eight idea archetypes and a number of process features. Based on this, we propose the Dual-Process Ideation (DPI) Model, which links idea creation and idea judgement. This explains a number of previously contradictory results and offers testable predictive power.

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Behavioural design has emerged as a critical new area of research and practice. However, despite the development of extensive lists of possible problem features and suggested solution principles there is little guidance on how these should be connected. Therefore, in this work we systematically examine interactions between major problem features and solution principles, based on an analysis of 218 behavioural design interventions drawn from 139 cases across design domains and foci. This forms the basis for a number of contributions. First, we bring together behavioural and designerly perspectives on problem characterisation via two proposed problem features: change demand and behavioural constraint, related in a two-by-two framework. Second, we synthesised recommendations from across domains and foci to operationalise a list of 23 solution principles relevant to designers. Third, we link these insights in a proposed Behavioural Problem/Solution (BPS) matrix. Further, we identify a number of potential systemic challenges in the reporting and evidencing of behavioural design interventions. Together, these insights substantially extend both theory and practice surrounding problem-solution mapping in behavioural design, and form a foundation for further theory development and synthesis in this area.@en

Professional Identity (PI) is a social- and self-perceptive construct that describes how people understand themselves as professionals. PI guides professional development by shaping professionalism, role assumptions, responsibilities, values, and behaviour; and is a critical factor in professional performance and wellbeing. As such, PI has significant implications for how we support engineering designers in professional development and direct their social- and self-understanding. However, no current research provides a complete picture of PI elements important for Designers’ Professional Identity (DPI). This study aims to review and synthesise PI elements, currently discussed separately in the design literature, in order to propose a holistic understanding of DPI. Based on an extensive literature review, we find that DPI consists of two distinct sets of elements: Personal Attributes (PA) and Design Skills (DS). We present these two sets of elements in terms of meaning, possible relations between them, and their influence on DPI development. In addition, we propose multiple directions for future research.

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Designers’ Professional Identity (DPI) is a social- and self-perceptive construct that describes how designers understand themselves as professionals. DPI guides development throughout a designer’s career by shaping professionalism, role assumptions, responsibilities, values and behaviour. DPI links two sets of elements: Personal Attributes and Design Skills. However, little is known about how designers perceive themselves in comparison to other critical actors affecting DPI: educators and managers. While differing perceptions between educators and managers is acknowledged, there is a critical need for more detailed understanding of these differences in comparison to how designers perceive themselves. This study uses semi-structured interviews with designers, design professors, and design managers to shed light on differences in perception of DPI. Analysis of the data highlights critical differences between the three groups. We described these differences with respect to three thematic perspectives on DPI: Technique, Creativity and Rapport. This provides important contributions to understanding DPI, with implications for education and practice.@en

Core elements of design work include the development of problem/solution understanding, as well as information and knowledge sharing activities. However, their interrelationships have been little explored. As such, this work aims to take the first steps towards a more integrated evaluation and description of the interaction between understanding and activity, based around co-evolutionary transition events; and start to answer the question: How can the link between co-evolution and activity be systematically characterized as a foundation for a more fundamental description of design activity? A protocol analysis is used to provide the basis for characterization of different types of coevolutionary transition event. A number of distinct event types are described and significant differences in information use and team engagement are identified across transition events. Bringing these findings together, we propose a unitary model of the interaction between activity and understanding around co-evolutionary transition events. This has a number of implications for future theory building and testing in both design activity and wider design research.@en