Unterstützung des Design Problem Solving: Einsatz und Nutzen einfacher externer Hilfsmittel in den frühen Phasen des konstruktiven Entwurfsprozesses

Due to its economic importance engineering design as a creative design problem solving has been the research subject of psychologists and design engineers for several years. Observations of designer's thinking and action processes show that especially in the early stages of the design process, in which requirements are clarified and ideas are developed, generating solutions is largely associated with the use of simple external representations such as sketches and material (physical) models. In the represented thesis the use and functions of such external aids were investigated at first with a questionnaire study consulting designers (N = 106) of different industries. The results demonstrate the dominance of sketches as well as the increasing use of CAD already in the early stages of product development. In contrast models are applied to a lesser extent. Thereby simple external aids are not only used as memory-relieving external information storages, but do also support solution development and testing, serve as an analysis aid and contribute helpfully to documentation and communication. Further in an experimental study the use and functions of sketching and manual modelling applied by engineering students and designers (N = 61) while working on two design problems of different complexity with free choice of the support form were analysed. The results verify the essential importance of sketching for the design process, since almost all subjects used sketches to deal with the two design problems, while material models were hardly applied. Again the sketches fulfil different functions, so besides documentation they mainly support solution development. These statement based findings that sketches in addition to their function as external storages for memory relief serve also as thinking aids, thus support the generating and further developing of solution concepts, could be confirmed by observation data based on the analysis of the individual design processes. Finally recommendations for the design of new and advanced computer-assisted design aids could be given.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Technische Universität Dresden

Year

2002

Author dc:creator

• Römer, Anne

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hacker, Winfried
• Richter, Peter
• Lindemann, Udo

• Entwurfsdenken
• Konstruieren
• Modellieren
• Skizzieren
• design problem solving
• engineering design
• modelling
• sketching