pdf From Ronchamp by sledge:
On the pragmatics of object references

MARTIN STACEY

Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

CLAUDIA ECKERT

Design Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

CHRISTOPHER EARL

Design Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

In
J. McDonnell & P. Lloyd (eds.)
About: Designing Analysing Design Meetings
CRC Press, Leiden, Netherlands, 2009, pp. 360-379.

A revised version of a paper presented at the
Seventh Design Thinking Research Symposium, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, September 2007

ABSTRACT. References to previous designs and other objects play an important role in the synthesis of new design ideas, but object references are used for a wide variety of other purposes in design thinking. This study reports on the roles that object references played in design meetings in projects developing two very different products: a crematorium, and a hand-held device with a thermal print head for drawing on heat-sensitive paper. These roles depended on the moment-to-moment needs of the participants in the meetings, which varied rapidly within meetings, and which were determined largely by the type of product and the state of the project. Almost all the references used were concise identifiers of concepts or features, or exemplars of categories.

KEYWORDS. Comparative design, design meetings, design communication, analogy, conceptual blending.

Martin Stacey
Department of Computer Technology
Faculty of Technology
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH
United Kingdom
mstacey@dmu.ac.uk

Claudia Eckert
The Design Group
Department of Design, Development,
    Environment and Materials
Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology
The Open University
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
United Kingdom
C.M.Eckert@open.ac.uk

Prof. Chris Earl
The Design Group
Department of Design, Development,
    Environment and Materials
Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology
The Open University
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
United Kingdom
c.f.earl@open.ac.uk