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Redesigning Thedesignexchange Method Page to Assist Novice Designers in Embedding Design Methods into Practice
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Vasudevan, Varna Agogino, Alice M. Poreh, Danielle |
| Copyright Year | 2018 |
| Abstract | The growth of the field of human-centered design, both in academia and industry, has led to a large increase in the quantity of documented design methods used as procedures to properly execute actions within the design process. This ever-growing collection of over 300 distinct design methods was disorganized and dispersed across different industries and resources, thus motivating the creation of theDesignExchange which consolidated and organized these design methods into a central online repository. Despite the benefits of the integration and collection of methods onto theDesignExchange database, usability studies showed that users, particularly novice designers felt overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of methods available to choose from. The selection and use of appropriate design methods for a specific project context has been linked to more successful project outcomes, thus emphasizing the importance of student access to design methods. In order to understand the needs of designers and educators embedding theDesignExchange into their projects and curriculum, this paper introduces an additional usability study involving design educators. Educator interviews were conducted in order to understand the current design education ecosystem and assess the value of theDesignExchange in the classroom. The findings illustrate that theDesignExchange has valuable content for both user bases, but suggested that the current organization and information architecture of the method page created major issues with usability and navigability of the online platform. Educators described how the direction provided by structured curriculum and educator experience in the classroom helps guide students towards method selection during individual and team project work. To solve this need, the Method Coach feature on theDesignExchange is in development. Early stage designs will be presented in this paper. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://varnavasudevan.com/assets/files/tDX_Thesis.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
