Chapter 5: Collective Form generation by a group of expert designers
5.4 Concluding Remarks on the Participatory Research 2
new in our study is the notion of a sketch functioning not only as a representational tool, but also a tool which anchors a physical space which affords not only representation but also the management of interaction itself. That a class of actions were found, which only occurred in combination with turn-takers ‘being’ in the space, and those actions not necessarily being of the ‘representational’ kind, brings to the fore this additional affordance. Moving even further from sketches as tools of representation, it is suggested that they may even work as arbitrators of turns of talk, and thereby participation in a very fundamental way. For interaction analysis, participation begins with people taking turns.
With regard to the maker/analyst process through which this study came about, the following can be noted. This research looks closely at very small interactional moments, finds some interesting actions, and then looks quickly through longer segments, though still little more than one fourth of the entire data set, to ascertain that and how these actions reoccur. The companion research, on the other hand, focuses on a flow of action through the 3-hour encounter in which artefacts, such as sketches, play an integral role.
On the one hand, the micro-analyses in this research are rather well grounded in the data. But on the other hand, the amount of time and labor needed to follow the entire flow makes such detailed analyses well-nigh impossible for the entire data set. The companion research allows us to follow the flow, yet can realistically provide little in the way of empirical analysis.
Companion researchers do have some things in common, however and that is an interest in the role of artefacts in a design process and their role in creating cooperative spaces in which designers and users may participate. This research complements the companion research in that it addresses both of these issues through an analysis of a single artefact, the sketch. The sketches, as well as other artefacts, for the companion research are thought to be useful for their informational value and their representivity.
This research then, adds to the usefulness to which an artefact can be put.
concept visualization outcome undertaken by expert designers following the participatory approach, clearly reflects and helps to confirm that a new conceptualizing approach can be adopted by designers that enables them to be more sensitive towards rich contextual user information (Nishant; Sharma et al., 2012). This clearly contrasts the conventional design process where such rich data is absent.
Communicating quickly and effectively rich contextual information (visual brief) to designers is vital and hence can become a precursor for such participatory activity with a group of designers. There are distinct advantages of having this kind of visual representation of the participatory data. It can facilitate designers to get quick and effective access to user-participatory-research data and ensure that it is reflected in features during their visualization for holistic vehicle design.
Designers tend to start from ‘engineering criteria’ before undertaking any task especially something that deals with ‘entry level’ vehicles. With this proposed methodology, designers can collectively evolve the integrated form of vehicle addressing various issues like vehicle architecture, new thematic directions, outlined aesthetic expression and basic details of the vehicle. Design group initiatives help to establish collective thoughts while they discuss ideas through sketches, and then re-establish them when responsibilities are shared.
Sketching can be used as a tool to discuss, conceptualize and negotiate concepts towards the final vehicle form. While sketching, designers discuss, ask, negotiate and seek consent from each other towards the final concept. The final concept can hold information that came from every member of the group that are openly and fairly negotiated and agreed upon by everyone.
From the view point of devising protocol of setting up the experiment in the evolved approach, the object (sketch) mediated participatory concept generation was analyzed.
This was done in a companion research as makers/analyst research with Danish researcher Dr. Dennis Day (conversational analyst) that resulted in a joint conference paper. Though results are discussed above, in terms of this thesis, it helped us to focus on physical space for sketching where much of the interaction takes place. Interactions happen both inside and outside the sketching space (Day & Sharma, 2012).
This activity, as it was realized later, is difficult to bind with specific time. Being exploratory in nature with constant interactions with the group, our study took around two and a half hours.
Going forward, deliverable of this stage would be a collectively visualized concept sketch. At this stage, in order to go ahead in making practical solutions, such a visualized sketch needs to go through the styling process as described in chapter 1.
Resulting renderings are practical and with proper dimensions.
The next chapter presents the evaluation of renderings by the novice users. This would be the final stage of the proposed comprehensive participatory vehicle design.