dart conference presentation

Matthew Watkins

Understanding the needs of Industrial & Product Designers when

implementing Sustainable Design

Matthew Watkins

Email: M.A.Watkins@lboro.ac.uk

Matthew Watkins

Key Terms

Ecodesign (Design for the Environment)

Okala (IDSA, 2005)

Matthew Watkins

Ecodesign

Lifecycle considerations– Extraction of raw materials

– Processing and Manufacturing

– Transportation

– Use

– Disposal

Matthew Watkins

Key Terms

Sustainable Design

Okala (IDSA, 2005)

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Environment & Designer

Environmental impact of a product is mostly ‘locked-in’ in the design process (Lewis et al. 2001)

Important for Industrial & Product designers to consider environment impact of products

Ecodesign tools are intended to give guidance or assessment capabilities to designers

Matthew Watkins

Focus of Presentation

The problems of existing ecodesign tools? What the needs of designers are in relation to

implementing sustainable design? How this will form an appropriateness criteria to

individually evaluate existing tools. Tool evaluation Further work as a result of these findings.

Matthew Watkins

Existing tools and solutions

There are a wide variety of tools and techniques currently in use within the product development process.

However these are generally considered to be unsuitable to the needs of designers.

With various authors commenting that the tools:

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Problems with Existing tools

Require expert use by environmental scientists (Le Pochat et al., 2007, Poyner and Simon, 1997, Baumann et al., 2002 )

Are designed to be used too late in the development process (Bhamra et al., 1999, Baumann et al., 2002)

Focus on the needs of design and production engineers rather than industrial designers (Lofthouse, 2001).

Matthew Watkins

Problems with Existing tools

Too long and lengthy requiring substantial reading (Lofthouse, 2003).

That many tools were text based tools and overly long and or produce numerical values that have little use to designers.

That tools were too time consuming to enable use on a regular basis (Lofthouse, 2003).

Matthew Watkins

Literature Survey into Designers Needs

Problems with existing tools could be classified as the following:– Presentation format of the information– Position within the design process– Usability– Efficiency in use

Matthew Watkins

Literature Survey into Designers Needs

A literature survey was conducted to determine the specific needs of industrial and product designers.

Focussed on how designers think and work in a general design context.

From the findings of this research an appropriateness criteria was developed to evaluate several existing ecodesign tools.

Matthew Watkins

Visual

A review of literature showed that:

– Designers prefer non verbal forms of communication (Cross 2007)

– Designers are predominately visual thinkers (Skaggs 2002, Sherwin and Evans, 2000)

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Presentation of information

– Visual imagery is important to the thinking

process of designers (Glegg 1969, Ferguson 1977)

– The act of sketching is often fundamental to a designers thinking process (Lawson 2006)

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Conceptual design

Its understood that the earlier environmental decisions can be made in the design process the better (Baumann et al., 2002, Bhamra et al., 1999).

A widely held view but unsupported view, is that the conceptual design stage is the most beneficial phase for reducing a products impact. (Baumann et al., 2002).

Matthew Watkins

Conceptual Design

Positioning the tool in the concept phase is further supported by:

Benefits of sketching to the designer (Lawson 2006).

Designers can often form attachment to an early design solution (Cross 2007)

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Flexible Unstructured Approach

Literature review showed that:– Designers prefer to work in an ad-hoc way

(Cross 2007) – Designers take an informal approach (Durling

1996)– Design is typically non hierarchical (Cross

2007)

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IntegrationIntegration

– Designers solve problems by synthesis (Cross 2007)

– Designers are convergent thinkers (Durling 1996)

– Designers view ecodesign as only one of many factors to consider in the design process (Richardson 2005)

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Integration

Designers need to consider an increasing number of design requirements.

Designers need a tool that is resource efficient and aids rather than hinders.

Sustainable design is the first step to integration.

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Appropriateness Criteria

The following criteria was developed as a result:

1. Presentation format – Usefulness of data and guidance

– Predominantly visual interface

2. Position within the design process– Conceptual design

– Relevance to designers role

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Appropriateness Criteria

3. Usability – No prior knowledge required

– Flexible in use

– Rapid use by an individual

4. Integration– Partial assessment due to the single subject

nature of ecodesign tools

– Can it be integrated into the design process

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Assessment Tools

GreenflyEco Indicator 99

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Analysis Tools

Ecodesign Web

LiDS Wheel

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Analysis Tools

MET Matrix

Design Abacus

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Assessment Tools

SortED Sima Pro

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Results of Appropriateness Criteria

Tool Presentation Position Usability Integration

Eco Indicator

Greenfly

MET Matrix

LiDS Wheel

Ecodesignweb

Design abacus

Sima Pro

SortED

Good Partial Poor

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Conclusions

The appropriateness criteria enabled the tools to be evaluated fairly.

Problem areas identified were different between tools, no common issue affected every tool.

Ecodesign web had the closest match partially due to its ability to its suitability in the conceptual design stage.

Matthew Watkins

Further work

An online survey of industrial and product designers will be conducted, to identify:

When they require guidance in the design process, testing the findings of the literature review.

Where in the design process designers begin to use CAD.

The specific information needs of designers.

Matthew Watkins

The End

Thank you

Any questions please…..

Updates on my research can be found on my webpage:

http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~cdmaw/index.htm