Do differences in educational culture affect the process and outcome of undergraduate design practice?

Abstract

Designers undertake projects in different ways, and as might be expected, these have the potential to produce a wide variety of outputs. While the designed artefact is understandably often the focus when evaluating student designers, the importance of process is paramount in design education. This is underpinned by the fact that a novice designer may produce a single successful project without a full understanding of how that artefact came about. However, a designer who can reflect upon and understand the process, is better equipped to repeat or further evolve this process in future projects. It is well understood that organisational structure and culture influences the ways designers choose to approach a project, from initial brief formation, through ideation and development, to the detail design and execution phases. An aspect not thoroughly understood is how different methods in design education specifically influence the methodologies designers employ in approaching a project, and therefore that projects outcome. Previous work has examined the influence of cultural background on the formation of a design brief, but not on the entire process. This research attempts to understand that influence, by forming links between the educational background as an input and process and artefact as outputs. This paper proposes a research framework in which both artefact and process are examined. To this end, cultural probe type tools, which actively encourage design students to reflect upon and report upon their process during a design project, are used to allow student design practitioners to self-report their design process.

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