Output details

Design Reasoning, Symbol Processing and Dematerialised Complexity

This paper examines the impact of using ‘digital’ media on design thinking. Questions explored during the course of the research were: a) Does the intensity of exposure to CAD in design affect design thinking? b) Does it promote a set of creative problem solving steps in design? Conjectures about design behaviour were formulated and tested in a ‘groups-design’ experiment where subjects were given a design task and encouraged to execute it using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) programme. The author has previously developed a set of measures to compute the creativity of process in design [Design Studies 22 (2001), 255-281]. Attitudes toward several design parameters were monitored using observations, questionnaires, and few structured interviews. The completed design schemes were also analysed. The Statistical Programme for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for measuring attitudes towards three design areas: ideation (including fluency, variety, complexity and creativity), materiality, and light. We took statistical measurements of design behaviours using Spearman's rho. The findings suggest a difference in attitudes between ‘intensive’ and ‘occasional’ CAD users toward the design process. Intensive users suggested that the use of CAD helped their pursuit and preference for complexity as well as their ideation fluency and design synthesis and, in turn, their overall design creativity.