**2. Two design programs in the National University of Singapore (NUS)**

Designing is a complex human activity and encompasses a series of complex interactions between many factors or variables. Controlling some of those variables becomes necessary to provide a meaningful dataset to work with. This paper focuses on design thinking in concep‐

© 2013 Jiang and Yen; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 Jiang and Yen; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 Jiang and Yen; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

tual design activities in the domain of product design. Two relevant design programs are studied, i.e. Industrial Design (ID) and Mechanical Engineering Design (ME) from the National University of Singapore (NUS), which is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Asia and the world. These design programs themselves also respectively hold a good reputa‐ tion in their own fields.

Another difference identified is the "given problem" presented in the task description or design briefs. ID briefs usually are in a narrative form, describing trends of design and the problematic situations. The project brief provides an abstract vision, rather than a problem. The problem statement may be presented like "to satisfy higher order of hierarchy of needs" (ID Brief A), "a user-friendly product for the doctors and patients within the digital era" (ID Brief B), "design for a reasonably foreseeable future" (ID Brief C), "to question conventional notions of luxury and challenge its relevance in the modern day context" (ID Brief D), and "to explore and create new form of objects" (ID Brief E). To respond the clarity of problems, nearly all ID briefs explicitly demand that the brief/problem needs to be evolved and continuously developed throughout the whole process. The intended solutions are open-ended in the initial briefs, e.g., "a one-off object or a collection of objects" (ID Brief A), "no fixed category" (ID

Design Thinking in Conceptual Design Processes: A Comparison Between Industrial and Engineering Design Students

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/52460

31

Instead of identifying the potential concepts, ME projects' task descriptions are much more structured. They are usually formatted in a form of checklist, such as backgrounds, objects, knowledge needed, deliveries, etc. The problems presented may have already specified the type, clients and detailed parameters of the envisioned solution, such as "a swing door stopper... to auto-close a swing door panel" (ME Task A), "a cooling system using ice as thermal energy storage" (ME Task B). The design requirements are clearly described and usually measurable, such as "converting a circular motion to a linear motion" (ME Task A). Some projects require to propose an application of an existing system in a particular situation, such as "an omni-directional 'Mecanum Wheel' robotic platform with Android platform control" (ME Task C), "a robot capable of taking videos for the creation of 3D images of underground sewerage pipe" (ME Task D), or a redesign/improvement, e.g., "to improve T-Bar turning

Brief C), or even "cool, crazy, stunning, unbelievable" (ID Brief E).

**3. Examination of consequences of the curricular differences**

The differences identified in design briefs and task descriptions suggest that the two design curricula place different emphases on the "problem finding" activities, i.e., the ways in which problems are envisaged, posed, formulated, created [15, 16]. The examination of these two curricula's influences on students' habitual design behaviors thus focuses on how ID and ME students formulate and solve design problems when given the same set of design briefs and task descriptions. The design experiment was conducted in a design-studio-like setting, as shown in Figure 2. The unit of participation was a small design team formed by 2 final-year undergraduate students. Each team was asked to perform two conceptual design tasks, one for the existing market and one for future market. A detailed description of this experiment is

Literature shows there are two types of problem finding, i.e., the "reactive/passive" and "proactive/purposive" problem finding [15, 18]. The former category refers to the prob‐ lem recognition triggered by similarities between the current situation and a known problem type related to existing solutions/problem-solving repertories. "Purposive" prob‐

device" (ME Task E).

presented in the authors' previous paper [17].

Design thinking is implemented as one of the essential pillars in these two programs. Both programs value multi-disciplinary aptitude and strongly encourage their students to take modules offered by other faculties, such as humanity, business and management, to broaden their perspectives and repertoire of skills [12, 13]. These two programs also collaborate with each other through joint design workshops and projects [14]. In addition,both programs champion a learning-by-doing approach in their curricula, while less relying on conventional lecture-based teaching and learning.

A closer examination is conducted by reviewing two capstone design courses: ID's "vertical design studio" and ME's "industry-sponsored projects". These two courses require students to undertake design projects on the basis of a small-scaled design teams (usually 2~5px). Faculty members and industry partners will co-supervise the projects. Many projects involve participation from other disciplines.

**Figure 1.** General schedules of ID and ME's design courses

The comparison of course plans demonstrates that the two courses have very different designing processes, as shown in Figure 1. ME projects require students to complete conceptual and embodiment design in the first half of course and submit a "paper solution" with detailed engineering calculations and drawings as their mid-term delivery. The foci of the second half of ME course is about evaluation and improvement of the proposed concept through a working prototype and further engineering calculations. ID's "vertical studio" emphasizes on the front end of designing, such as background research and problem scoping, user study, analysis of existing products, and technical and marketing inquiries. ID's mid-term delivery normally is a presentation of research findings about the problematic situation and design opportunities. The generation and development of design concepts/solutions are postponed to the second half of the course.

Another difference identified is the "given problem" presented in the task description or design briefs. ID briefs usually are in a narrative form, describing trends of design and the problematic situations. The project brief provides an abstract vision, rather than a problem. The problem statement may be presented like "to satisfy higher order of hierarchy of needs" (ID Brief A), "a user-friendly product for the doctors and patients within the digital era" (ID Brief B), "design for a reasonably foreseeable future" (ID Brief C), "to question conventional notions of luxury and challenge its relevance in the modern day context" (ID Brief D), and "to explore and create new form of objects" (ID Brief E). To respond the clarity of problems, nearly all ID briefs explicitly demand that the brief/problem needs to be evolved and continuously developed throughout the whole process. The intended solutions are open-ended in the initial briefs, e.g., "a one-off object or a collection of objects" (ID Brief A), "no fixed category" (ID Brief C), or even "cool, crazy, stunning, unbelievable" (ID Brief E).

tual design activities in the domain of product design. Two relevant design programs are studied, i.e. Industrial Design (ID) and Mechanical Engineering Design (ME) from the National University of Singapore (NUS), which is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Asia and the world. These design programs themselves also respectively hold a good reputa‐

Design thinking is implemented as one of the essential pillars in these two programs. Both programs value multi-disciplinary aptitude and strongly encourage their students to take modules offered by other faculties, such as humanity, business and management, to broaden their perspectives and repertoire of skills [12, 13]. These two programs also collaborate with each other through joint design workshops and projects [14]. In addition,both programs champion a learning-by-doing approach in their curricula, while less relying on conventional

A closer examination is conducted by reviewing two capstone design courses: ID's "vertical design studio" and ME's "industry-sponsored projects". These two courses require students to undertake design projects on the basis of a small-scaled design teams (usually 2~5px). Faculty members and industry partners will co-supervise the projects. Many projects involve

& present Design research Design & evaluate

The comparison of course plans demonstrates that the two courses have very different designing processes, as shown in Figure 1. ME projects require students to complete conceptual and embodiment design in the first half of course and submit a "paper solution" with detailed engineering calculations and drawings as their mid-term delivery. The foci of the second half of ME course is about evaluation and improvement of the proposed concept through a working prototype and further engineering calculations. ID's "vertical studio" emphasizes on the front end of designing, such as background research and problem scoping, user study, analysis of existing products, and technical and marketing inquiries. ID's mid-term delivery normally is a presentation of research findings about the problematic situation and design opportunities. The generation and development of design concepts/solutions are postponed to the second

Paper solution

Mid-term delivery

Research report + design brief

Mid-term delivery

Prototype, test & Eng. calculation

with "end-users"

Final report & present

Final delivery

Final report

Final delivery

tion in their own fields.

30 Advances in Industrial Design Engineering

lecture-based teaching and learning.

participation from other disciplines.

**ID "vertical studio"** 

Eng. calculation & design

**Figure 1.** General schedules of ID and ME's design courses

half of the course.

**ME "industry-sponsored projects"**

Instead of identifying the potential concepts, ME projects' task descriptions are much more structured. They are usually formatted in a form of checklist, such as backgrounds, objects, knowledge needed, deliveries, etc. The problems presented may have already specified the type, clients and detailed parameters of the envisioned solution, such as "a swing door stopper... to auto-close a swing door panel" (ME Task A), "a cooling system using ice as thermal energy storage" (ME Task B). The design requirements are clearly described and usually measurable, such as "converting a circular motion to a linear motion" (ME Task A). Some projects require to propose an application of an existing system in a particular situation, such as "an omni-directional 'Mecanum Wheel' robotic platform with Android platform control" (ME Task C), "a robot capable of taking videos for the creation of 3D images of underground sewerage pipe" (ME Task D), or a redesign/improvement, e.g., "to improve T-Bar turning device" (ME Task E).
