A User Study to Evaluate the Function Model and Function Interaction Model for Concept Generation

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raveesh Ramachandran ◽  
Benjamin W. Caldwell ◽  
Gregory M. Mocko
Keyword(s):  
User Study ◽  
Interaction Model ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Function Model ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase ◽  
Independent Form ◽  
Design Solutions ◽  
And Function

Function modeling is often performed during the conceptual design phase to identify what the product must do in a solution independent form. However, function-based design approaches do not adequately enable designers to capture and analyze the non-functional requirements, interactions between the product of interest and other products and interactions between the product of interest and human users. This paper presents the results of a user study to evaluate how two models: (1) traditional function models (FM) and (2) the function interaction model (FIM), relate to functional and non-functional engineering requirements, and how they affect the creation of design solutions. Forty students were divided into two groups and asked to generate solutions for a design problem using either the function model (FM) or the function interaction model (FIM). The concepts were then evaluated in terms of quantity and quality by an external panel. Results from this study indicate that the quantity of solutions generated by the function model (FM) group is greater than the function interaction model (FIM) group. However, the quality of design concepts from the function interaction model (FIM) group is greater than the function model (FM) group. Further, nonfunctional requirements that are important to the design solutions cannot be captured in function model and thus are not reflected in the associated solution concepts.

Assessing the Use of Function Models and Interaction Models Through Concept Sketching

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin W. Caldwell ◽  
Raveesh Ramachandran ◽  
Gregory M. Mocko
Keyword(s):  
User Study ◽  
Interaction Model ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Function Model ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Model Interaction ◽  
Interaction Models ◽  
New Device ◽  
Function Models

Functional representations are often used in the conceptual stages of design because they encourage the designer to focus on the intended use and purpose of a system rather than the physical solution. Function models have been proposed by many researchers as a tool to expand the solution search space and guide concept generation, and many design tools have been created to support function-based design. These tools require designers to create function models of new or existing artifacts, but there is limited published research describing the level of functional detail that should be included in a model or the appropriate level of abstraction to model artifacts. Further, there is limited experimental evidence that designers use function models when generating concepts, and controlled experiments in the literature have focused on ideation rather than function models. Therefore, this research focuses on how artifacts should be modeled to guide concept generation in conceptual design. In this research, three artifact representations are studied: function models, interaction models, and pruned function models. A user study was conducted in which participants were asked to design a new device based on a problem statement, a set of requirements, and a treatment. Participants were randomly assigned a treatment of a function model, interaction model, pruned model, or no model. A conformance metric was developed to measure the extent to which participants used a model when generating concept sketches. The results show that the functional conformance of participants using a pruned model is approximately 40% higher than that of participants using a function model. These results demonstrate that the use of a specific level of functional detail improves the use of functions within the model for concept generation.

An I-Ching-TRIZ-Inspired Approach to Design Concept Generation

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duc Truong Pham ◽  
Huimin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Design Concept ◽  
Design Solution ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
I Ching ◽  
Innovative Design ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Aircraft Cabin ◽  
Design Specifications ◽  
Design Solutions

This paper presents a new approach to producing innovative design concepts. The proposed approach involves extending the inventive principles of TRIZ by integrating other TRIZ and TRIZ-inspired tools. The set of inventive principles is then structured according to a framework adapted from I-Ching and represented using TRIZ’s Behaviour-Entity (BE) formalism to which constraints have also been added. The adoption of the BE representation enables a reduction in the amount of repeated information in the inventive principles. A BE pair contains information on a design solution. A Behaviour-Entity-Constraint (BEC) triple additionally has information on constraints on the solution. The BEC representation thus facilitates the retrieval and generation of design solutions from design specifications. The paper uses the problem of laying out seats in an aircraft cabin to illustrate advantages of the proposed approach.

The Part Count Tool (PACT) for Concept Selection

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarang Parashar ◽  
Katie Grantham Lough ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Manufacturing Cost ◽  
Design Phase ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Product Concept ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Component Type ◽  
The Cost

This paper presents a part count tool that automates the consideration of manufacturing cost during the conceptual design phase by predicting part count for a particular product concept. With an approximate number of parts per product in the conceptual design phase, the designer can estimate the cost associated with the product. On the basis of the cost, the designer can make changes according to budget requirements. The part count tool will also aid in ranking the design concepts by number of components for a product. This tool utilizes existing automated concept generation algorithms to generate the design concepts. It extracts the available data from the Missouri S&T Design Repository to compute an average number of parts per component type in the repository and then calculates an average part count for new concepts. This data can subsequently be used by designers to estimate product cost. The part count tool also uses an algorithm to determine how to connect two non compatible components through the addition of mutually compatible components. While emphasis is placed on the average parts per product in evaluating designs, the overall functional requirement of the product is also considered.

Informing Early Design via Crowd-Based Co-Creation

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devarajan Ramanujan ◽  
Vinayak ◽  
Yash Nawal ◽  
Tahira Reid ◽  
Karthik Ramani
Keyword(s):  
Main Idea ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Early Design ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Design Attributes ◽  
Design Requirements ◽  
And Function

Customer inputs in the early stages of design can potentially lead to completely new outlooks in concept generation. We propose crowd-based co-creation as a means to this end. Our main idea is to think of the customer as a source of initial design concepts rather than a means for obtaining preferences towards designer-generated concepts. For analyzing a large collection of customer-created prototypes, we develop a framework that focuses on generating hypotheses related to customer perception of design attributes. We demonstrate our approach through a web interface to gather design requirements for a computer mouse, a bicycle seat, a pen holder, and a cola bottle. This interface was used in a crowdsourcing study with 253 users who represented potential end users for these products. Results from this study show that web-based co-creation allows designers to capture a variety of form and function-related design requirements from user-created virtual prototypes. We also found that such studies can be instrumental in identifying innovative product concepts, and gaining insights about how user perception correlates with product form. Therefore, we make the case that customer creation through distributed co-creation platforms can reinforce concept exploration in future early design processes.

Automated Concept Generation Based on Function-Form Synthesis

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung Woo Kang ◽  
Conrad S. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Ground Effect ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Function Form ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Functional Relationships ◽  
Current Product ◽  
And Function

This work hypothesizes that enhancing next generation products’ distinctiveness through function-form synthesis results in feasible design concepts for designers. A data mining driven methodology that searches for novel function and form candidates suitable to include in next generation product design is introduced in this work. The methodology employs a topic modeling algorithm to search for functional relationships between the current product design and designs from related/unrelated domains. Combining the current product design and candidate products’ form and function, which is acquired from related/unrelated domains, generates next generation design concepts. These resulting design concepts are not only distinct from their parent designs but are also likely to be implemented in the real world by containing novel functions and form features. A hybrid marine model, which is differentiated from both the current design and candidate products in related/unrelated domains, is introduced in the case study in order to demonstrate the proposed methodology’s potential to develop concepts for novel product domains. By comparing the form and function similarity values between generated design concepts, an existing hybrid marine model (Wing In Ground effect ship: WIG), and source products, this research verifies the feasibility of these design concepts.

scholarly journals Intrinsic disorder in protein domains contributes to both organism complexity and clade-specific functions

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Gao ◽  
Chong Ma ◽  
Huqiang Wang ◽  
Haolin Zhong ◽  
Jiayin Zang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Significance ◽  
Protein Domains ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Post Translational Modification ◽  
Intrinsically Disordered ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Complex Functions ◽  
Disorder Degree ◽  
Functional Features ◽  
And Function

AbstractInterestingly, some protein domains are intrinsically disordered (abbreviated as IDD), and the disorder degree of same domains may differ in different contexts. However, the evolutionary causes and biological significance of these phenomena are unclear. Here, we address these issues by genome-wide analyses of the evolutionary and functional features of IDDs in 1,870 species across the three superkingdoms. As the result, there is a significant positive correlation between the proportion of IDDs and organism complexity with some interesting exceptions. These phenomena may be due to the high disorder of clade-specific domains and the different disorder degrees of the domains shared in different clades. The functions of IDDs are clade-specific and the higher proportion of post-translational modification sites may contribute to their complex functions. Compared with metazoans, fungi have more IDDs with a consecutive disorder region but a low disorder ratio, which reflects their different functional requirements. As for disorder variation, it’s greater for domains among different proteins than those within the same proteins. Some clade-specific ‘no-variation’ or ‘high-variation’ domains are involved in clade-specific functions. In sum, intrinsic domain disorder is related to both the organism complexity and clade-specific functions. These results deepen the understanding of the evolution and function of IDDs.

scholarly journals ECHOLOCATING THE DIGITAL SELF: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette N Markham
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Symbolic Interaction ◽  
Interaction Model ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Response Versus ◽  
And Function

This paper explores echolocation as a conceptual framework to extend our understanding of digital sociality. Echolocation is a process whereby the characteristics of an echo build a map of location and relation. Most often we think of how bats, whales, and dolphins echolocate to navigate. If we think of radar, sonar, or lidar, we might think of submarines, autonomous vehicles, or even geolocation on our mobile devices. In this paper, I discuss echolocation as a symbolic interaction framework for describing how the Self is negotiated and identified in and as a part of social space. It focuses attention on the character and function of pings, push notifications, red dots on device screens, and other responses in ongoing interactions between people in social media or between humans and nonhuman or more than human elements of media ecologies. The interpretive qualitative analysis is part of a six year ethnographic study of youth. The analysis of echolocation emerges from a subset of the larger study, those who feel anxiety and even existential vulnerability when disconnected. Based on this qualitative analysis of narratives, the paper builds and extends echolocation as a theory of digital sociality that pays close attention to the response versus the performance in the interaction model.

scholarly journals How do designers generate new ideas? Design heuristics across two disciplines

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seda Yilmaz ◽  
Shanna R. Daly ◽  
Colleen M. Seifert ◽  
Richard Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Heuristics ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Industrial Designers ◽  
Protocol Study ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Design Heuristic

Research supports the central role cognitive strategies can play in successful concept generation by individual designers. Design heuristics have been shown to facilitate the creation of new design concepts in the early, conceptual stage of the design process, as well as throughout the development of ideas. However, we know relatively little about their use in differing disciplines. This study examined evidence of design heuristic use in a protocol study with 12 mechanical engineers and 12 industrial designers who worked individually to develop multiple concepts. The open-ended design problem was for a novel product, and the designers’ sketches and comments were recorded as they worked on the problem for 25 min and in a retrospective interview. The results showed frequent use of design heuristics in both disciplines and a significant relationship to the rated creativity of the concepts. Though industrial designers used more heuristics in their concepts, there was a high degree of similarity in heuristic use. Some differences between design disciplines were observed in the choice of design heuristics, where industrial designers showed a greater emphasis on user experience, environmental contexts, and added features. These findings demonstrate the prevalence of design heuristics in individual concept generation and their effectiveness in generating creative concepts, across two design domains.

A Knowledge Extraction and Design Support System for Supporting Industrial and Product Design

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
W. B. Lee ◽  
W. M. Wang ◽  
C. F. Cheung ◽  
Z. H. Wu
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Support System ◽  
Knowledge Extraction ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Support ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Support System ◽  
Design Ideas

Industrial and product design involves a lot of unstructured information for the generation of innovative product design ideas. However, the generation of innovative design concepts is not only time consuming but also heavily relies on the experience of product designers. Most existing systems focus mainly on the technical aspects of realizing product designs, which are inadequate to support concept generation process at the pre-design stage. In this paper, a knowledge extraction and design support system (KEDSS) is presented. The system aims at extracting key design concepts and depicting the trends of these concepts from the massive amount of unstructured design information in the open domain. A summary report, a related concept list, and concept trend graphs are produced based on the inputs of the designers' design ideas. A series of experiments have been conducted to measure the performance of the system. Moreover, the system has been successfully trial implemented as part of a public service platform for modern industrial design of injection molding machinery and equipment.

scholarly journals An Immersive VR Application for Interactive Product Concept Generation and Qualitative Evaluation

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Noon ◽  
Ruqin Zhang ◽  
Eliot Winer ◽  
Jim Oliver ◽  
Brian Gilmore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Computer Aided Design ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Qualitative Evaluation ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Design Phase ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Early Assessment ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase

Currently, new product concepts are evaluated by developing detailed virtual models with Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools followed by evaluation analyses (e.g., finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, etc.). Due to the complexity of these evaluation methods, it is generally not possible to model and analyze each of the ideas generated throughout the conceptual design phase of the design process. Thus, promising ideas may be eliminated based solely on insufficient time to model and assess them. Additionally, the analysis performed is usually of much higher detail than needed for such early assessment. By eliminating the time-consuming CAD complexity, engineers could spend more time evaluating additional concepts. To address these issues, a software framework, the Advanced Systems Design Suite (ASDS), was created. The ASDS incorporates a PC user interface with an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment to ease the creation and assessment of conceptual design prototypes individually or collaboratively in a VR environment. Assessment tools incorporate metamodeling approximations and immersive visualization to evaluate the validity of each concept. In this paper, the ASDS framework and interface along with specifically designed immersive VR assessment tools such as state saving, dynamic viewpoint creation, and animation playback are presented alongside a test case example of redesigning a Boeing 777 in the conceptual design phase.

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