This research contributes to establishing a detailed protocol in the development of the Participatory Design method to elicit tacit and unmet needs for personal transportation vehicles. This chapter elaborates on the status of current practice in the participatory design method, which is the focus of this research.
Introduction
Introduction
Design for Automobile: An Overview of the Automobile Sector, Characteristics, Approaches and
- The Characteristics of Automobile and its Manufacture
- Recent Trends in Automobile Design Development
- Notes on Automobile Styling Process, Styling Studio and Design Work Typology
- Concept Vehicles: Beyond Routine Design Work
- Emergent Trends in Automobile Design in the 21 st Century - Breaking New Grounds and
Longevity of the design is important for the car to remain competitive in the market. Concept studies are a useful way to “enlighten” customers on an upcoming shift in a company's design language.
Indian Automotive Industry
- The Emerging Landscape of Indian Auto Industry
India's two-wheeler emission regulations are among the strictest in the world (Technology Roadmap 2006). Four-wheeler category: In the four-wheeler category, compact cars (typical example in Figure 1.7) accounted for 60% of total passenger car sales in India (Technology Roadmap 2006).
Motivation for Research
- Case Study 1: Design of Scooter for Women (Indian Market)
- Case Study 2: Observational Research in Five Indian Cities
- Observations and Insight from Two Case Studies
Two wheelers in India must cater to the comfort of the riders who hold, carry and handle various types and forms of luggage by providing additional support and space for the same. This allows for a thorough rethinking of the established practices and methods followed in the automotive sector.
Identification of Research Problem
Closely related to diversity in users is diversity in the context of their use. The situation clearly calls for the need to understand users at a much deeper level, as well as to increase their involvement in the Fuzzy Front End (FFE) of the design process.
Research Questions
The designer is considered an 'expert', whose job is to design solutions based on the information collected from the users. What would be the protocol for participatory evaluation by the users in the evaluation phase of the design process?
Hypothesis
Aim
Objectives
- Case Study
To collaboratively empower the designer group to design context-sensitive vehicle product, the process of transformation of product specifications into design concepts for personal transportation to context-specific requirements that suit the Indian context, actively learn from it and contribute in the overall methodology. To engage users in concept evaluation, actively learn from it and contribute to the overall methodology.
Structure of the Thesis in Chapters
Following the Participatory Design Method (PDM), it outlines the stages of planning the Participatory Design Method for capturing requirements of tacit knowledge and aspirations of end users, involving selection of participants and the design of 3D tools to facilitate user participation in requirements capture. Involves conducting the Participatory Design Method (PDM) session using the 3D Toolkit and seeking insights from user participants.
Developments in Design Research Methods – an overview through
- Introduction
- State of Art Theoretical Framework of Design Research
- User Centered Zone: Design Methods Since 90’s
- Investigating Design Situations
- Investigating User Behavior
- Contextual Enquiry
- Lead User Innovation
- Critical Design: Design Led and User as Audience
- Semantics, Design, and Emotion: Mid 1990s
- The Participatory Design Research
- Generative Design Research
- Generative Tools Bubble
- Concluding Remarks
It also describes the designer/researcher role transition and user perception in the design process. From left to right, the chart specifies the role of users throughout the design process and also describes the mindset of the designer/researcher.
Participatory Design Method
- Introduction
- Participatory Design Method as Generative Design Method
- Participatory Design Model
- Preparing the Study
- Sensitization
- Participatory Design Session with Users
- Analysis
- Communicating the Knowledge to Design Team
- Conversation Analysis in Participatory Sessions: Ethnomethodological Method
- Concluding Remarks
Currently documented Participatory Design tools and techniques can be explained through the framework developed by (Brandt, Binder, & Sanders, 2012). There are mainly three activities in the framework (Figure 3.4) and each has tools and techniques. The results of the experiments showed the influence of the types of tools on participatory research. Some of the tools/techniques found in the literature are listed in Table 3.5.
In the session, the stories and anecdotes during the 'making' of the artefacts are recorded on video and audio. Designers need this information to inform and inspire concept generation in the early stages of the development process. Participatory design researchers have published several case examples in the field of industrial design to support participatory research.
Participatory Design Experiments – Gaining Context-Sensitive Insights
Introduction
Outlining a Structure for Conducting Research Experiments
This experiment explores the fuzzy front end of the design process following a participatory design method (PDM) to help bring tacit knowledge, aspirations to the surface among targeted, novice Indian users. The aspirational needs of end users from the product form the design brief for domain experts (graduated students to automotive designers). These concept illustrations are subject to visual refinement in the form of renderings by trained expert stylists.
Dialogue analysis and video analysis using the expertise of an international expert all help validate and confirm the benefits of PDM and their contribution to the design process. The research methodology used throughout the thesis is 'qualitative' in nature and is based on the collective responses of novice and expert user groups. The data obtained from the experiments would be rich in the form of images, videos, audio and sketches.
Stage 0: Design of PD Toolkit - Design and Development of 3D Generative Toolkit as an Aid for
- Designing a New Toolkit
- User Centric Way of Designing Generative Toolkit
- Leanings from the First Toolkit
- Design and Fabrication of Concrete Toolkit
- Four Types of Toolkits
- Concluding Remarks of Stage 0
Grid patterns were investigated (Figure 4.6) and all the components were made based on the grid. The holes and button magnets were used to allow plug-and-play action while the set was in use (Figure 4.8 A, B). Like the abstract toolkit, the design of the concrete toolkit also began with the superimposition of entry-level two-wheeler over entry-level car (Figure 4.4) in Adobe Illustrator software.
The wheels (Figure 4.12) are made to look more realistic, with a black ring on the white disc. Abstract-concrete (hybrid) toolkit: In this toolkit (Figure 4.23), the human world is concrete and the artificial world is abstract. It has now also been established that the toolkit is a crucial part of Participatory Design (Figure 4.24).
Stage 1: Participatory Design with Novice Users
- Conducting the Participatory Design Method to Access Tacit Knowledge and Aspirations of End
- Sensitizing
- Conducting the Participatory Design Method Session using 3D Toolkit
- Analysis of Participatory Research
- Communicating Results: Context Mapping: Formulation of Design Brief for Specialist Designers to
- Experiment Repeated with Foreign Expert Groups
In this session, participants were again given the option to mix elements from the concrete toolkit and the abstract toolkit - but the elements of the human world are concrete and elements of the artificial world are abstract. The next section gives a brief summary of the analysis of the insights made for the four experimental sessions. It started with explaining the tool kit and understanding the background of the same kind of experiment done with the Indian groups.
There may be a unit at the rear of the vehicle, which can be attached or detached.
Concluding Remarks on the Participatory Research 1
The next chapter presents a collective form visualization with a group of designers to take this process forward.
Collective Form generation by a group of expert designers
Introduction
This chapter demonstrates how deep and tacit, context-sensitive information generated by participatory research was used to shape the conceptualization of a vehicle through a collective exercise undertaken by a group of designers.
Planning
- Selection of Participants
- Preparation of Support Media
- Time Plan for Participatory Research 2
- Role of Moderator
- Instrument of Data Collection
The designers were informed in advance that there would be no discussion with the moderator to observe the natural ability of visual representation to communicate in form generation.
Conducting Participatory Research 2: Collective Form Generation by Expert Group
- Background and Tasks
- Conducting Session
- Literature and Theory
- Data and Methods
- Results
Styling or appearance of the vehicle came up quite late in the session as a point of discussion. During the course of the discussion, they volunteered to sketch and render various parts of the vehicle. In the next section, the detailed methodology and insights from the expert analyst's perspective are presented.
The sketch is also, and mostly, aimed at holding or moving one's hand 'in the box'. So far, only actions in the sketch space have been illustrated by single turn holders. AV, while contributing to the discussion, is not physically in the sketch space with the others at all.
Concluding Remarks on the Participatory Research 2
The fact that a class of actions was found which occurred only in combination with the "being" of changelings in space, and those actions not necessarily of the "representational" type, highlights this additional possibility. This research looks closely at very small interactive moments, finds a few interesting actions, and then quickly looks at longer segments, although still a little more than a quarter of the entire data set, to find out if and how these actions are repeated. There are distinct advantages to having this type of visual representation of participant data.
With this proposed method, designers can jointly develop the integrated form of vehicles, addressing various issues such as vehicle architecture, new thematic directions, outlined aesthetic expressions, and basic details of the vehicle. The final concept may contain information that came from each member of the group, which is openly and fairly negotiated and agreed upon by all. Although the findings are discussed above, in relation to this thesis, it helped us to focus on the physical space for outlining where much of the interaction takes place.
Participatory Evaluation by users
- Introduction
- Planning The Participatory Evaluation Session
- Selection of Participants
- Time Plan
- Mode of Conducting
- Instrument of Data Collection
- Data: Visual Renderings of Vehicle Concepts
- Conducting: Participatory Concept Evaluation
- Observations on the Participatory Research 3
- Analysis Based On Conversation Analytics of Audio Recording
- Methodology and Data Analysis of Conversation during Concept Validation
- Analysis
- Discussion
- Concluding Remarks on the Participatory Research 4
In particular, the user participants rate the appearance of one version that they think looks appropriate. In the concept validation session examined here, the user participants touch each of these features. It can be heard both as a general prompt to determine if the designers have succeeded in converting the user participants.
At the beginning of the round-up, the moderator specifically asks the user participants to compare the vehicle concepts now presented to them with the ideas they conveyed to the designers during the first participatory session. The user participants were shown sketches and renderings and asked to discuss various vehicle concepts. During the concept validation session, user participants evaluated sketches and renderings to verify whether designers were successful in transforming the user participants' ideas into vehicle concepts.
Proposed Participatory Design method
- Introduction
- Participatory Toolkit Design as Precursor to PD Research
- From Subsection, I of Chapter 4
- PD Session With Novice Users
- Planning of Experiments
- Sensitizing
- Conducting Participatory Design (PD) Session
- Analysis
- Communicating Results: Context Mapping
- Final Process Flow
- Collective Form Generation By Group of Designers
- Planning Document Checklist
- Conducting
- Final Process Flow
- Participatory Evaluation
- A Checklist is Prepared Before Conducting Participatory Evaluation (Table 7.7)
- Conducting Evaluation Activity
- Consolidating into an Overall Participatory Approach
- Detailed Protocol
- Concluding Remarks
The outlines of the complete planning of the Participatory Design Method protocol of four activities and details of their implementation are described in this chapter. The basic design of the Participatory Design toolkit is mainly determined by what is expected from this activity and what level of ideas would be useful. Materials, geometry, and the way you arrange the toolkit make them specific to particular Participatory Design goals and objectives.
The schematic as shown in Figure 7.3 shows several possibilities of attachment capability and configurability that provide us with a solution that can start at any component. A pilot with 3-4 users in a simulated situation, similar to real participatory design session, should be done to complete the design cycle and to verify that the toolkit works well. This section, as illustrated in Figure 7.5, will present a step-by-step protocol for conducting a Participatory Design Session with novice users: This will involve planning the entire participatory research to conducting the participatory design research.
Conclusions of Research, limitations and future scope
Conclusions
- Evolved a Participatory Approach for Context-Sensitive Design
- Evolved Participatory Design Method that Integrates with Design Process
- Clearer Fuzzy Front End
- Process and Tools Empower Novice User Group and Expert Design Group
- Artifacts as Enablers in Catalyzing and Strengthening Participatory Design Process
- Synergy with Multi-Functional Teams
Limitations of This Research
- Limitation of Literature Because of Confidentiality
- Toolkit Limitations: Need More for Details
- Collective Form: Strategy Shift in Studios
- External Appearances may Hinder Real Evaluation in Participatory Settings
- Limitations in Evolved Approach
Future Scope of this Research
Questionnaire for user centric toolkit
User responses with codes for Toolkit Design
Affinity analysis of Data
Videos of Participatory activity
Pictures for time lapse video
Time lapse video made with still images
Video of experiment with foreign experts
Video of collective form generation
Transcript Symbols and Notations
Participatory Study in MDII on which evaluation is based
Renderings for evaluation
Video of evaluation, Excerpt of video for analysis
List of Conference Papers
