User:SorenIngomar/design quantification

Design Quantification
Design Quantification is the scientific domain of quantifying the internal organizational and the external societal contribution of the Creative Economy. Drivers and enablers are measured in the context of cultures, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and the final societal contribution. Metrics focus on initial thinking, framing and the applied design process as related to final outcome. The objective is to support sustainable progress related to evolving human needs.

Design Quantification applies an empirical evidence-based approach to building organizational dynamic competitive advantages. By observing the practices of professionals, metrics are developed to connect the internal performance of design and design teams to external performance metrics.

History
The emerging domain of Design Quantification is rooted in design research conducted at Stanford’s Center for Design Research in January, 2000, by Lary Leifer, Ade Mabogunje, Oscar Eris, John Feland and Søren Ingomar Petersen. The foundation of the domain is the detection of patterns in design briefing, design sign team collaboration, design process, concept design reasoning and design team and global design award jury evaluations.

Methodology
Expanding the domain of Design Quantification is achieved though applying Stanford Design Thinking and Design Research. Theories are inspired by industry experiences and theory from bordering domains, augmented by review of historical data, interviews with practitioners and surveys. Experiments and validation of methods are realized though collaboration with firms on new product development projects.

Terminology
Aspect: An entity that is linked to many parts of a system, but which is not necessarily the primary entity of the system. [Wikipedia, 06/06/2008, www.wikipedia.org] Brief: A design brief is a comprehensive written document for a design project developed in concert with a person representing the business needs for the design and the designer. The document is focused on the desired results of design – not aesthetics. [Wikipedia, 07/15/2011, www.wikipedia.org] Concept: An abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances. [Merriam-Webster 04/04/2008, www.merriam-webster.com] Concept Aspect: The Concept Aspects contained in the Concept Aspect Model: Provider, Philosophy, Planning (Strategy & Process), Technology, Architecture, Feature, Function, Interface, Activity, Behavior, Need, Identity and Individual. [Petersen, 2004] Concept Aspect Profile Argument (CAPArg): Is the Concept Aspect Profile coding applied to designer’s argument using the IDEA award application as an interview guide. By observing derived profile for an argument and a performance characteristic, connections are established between design reasoning, by story telling, and Design Quality Criteria and IDEA Award reception. [Petersen 2004] Concept Aspect Profile (CAPArg and CAPIDEA) baseline: The distribution formed, by averaging the observed segments for each aspect. In effect, it is the bias of the interview guide. [Petersen 2004] Concept Description: A concept description has to contain the product idea related to need satisfaction, use value and business for company, but also a model of the design, which allows the design team to reason and communicate about the conceptual aspects with regard to mode of action, man-machine interaction, industrial design, certain features etc. [Hansen & Andreasen, 2003] Concept Aspect Profile IDEA (CAPIDEA): This is the Concept Aspect Profile applied to coding the IDEA award-applications. By observing the derived profile for an IDEA entry in comparison with its resulting award reception performance (Gold, Silver, Bronze or Non-Qualifying), connections are established between application, argument and award reception. [Petersen, 2007] Concept Aspect Model: Circular model connecting “Users” to service “Providers” though a physical transactional and a cultural connection point. The model consists of 13 aspects: (Provider, Philosophy, Planning (Strategy & Process), Technology, Architecture, Feature, Function, Interface, Activity, Behavior, Basic Need, Identity, Individual. [Petersen, 2004] Design: Design is the coordinated actions of transforming strategy, context and execution knowledge and learning into a competitive offering. This entails continuously defining, describing and developing a tangible meaningful narrative. improving your ability to create offerings. [Petersen 2011] Design Argument/reasoning: Relaying a concept to decision- makers through the use of storytelling. [Petersen, 2004] Design Quality Criteria: Measured within the following nine areas and ordered within three main categories for products: Philosophy, Structure, Innovation, Social/human, Environmental, Viability, Process, Function and Expression. [Petersen, 2004] Design Thinking: Design thinking is a way of finding good problems and framing and forming solutions that is different from analytical thinking - it relies more on synthesis, meaning, and context than on analysis and data-reduction. It employs creativity, empathy, prototyping, and iteration, and is multi-disciplinary and requires radical collaboration among teams. It is particularly powerful when applied as solutions to “wicked problems.” Rittell/Webber (Berkeley, 1973), - “ill-defined problems which are messy, circular, and aggressive and whose solutions are not true-or-false, but better or worse.” [Stanford, 2011]