Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Aspects Of Global Industrial Design, 'A Diversification Among Cultures'., Mohamad Zamzuri, Jan Lundberg

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Global industrial design principles have recently gained momentum as one viable method of producing useful, usable and desirable products. However, cultural diversification existing between countries seems to be a tall hurdle facing designers. In short, this cultural difference might prevent the object in question from being widely accepted across the world, although it may have been categorized as being “universal” for the purpose of increasing the profit margin of the company. Therefore, the problems associated with this area of design should be addressed and elucidated in research, to avoid cultural disagreement in the future in product design. The aim of …

The Azure Sky, The Design Made., Peter Downton

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Research is undertaken to produce knowledge. Typically, research is divided into two classes – applied research intended to result in a useful and probably commercial outcome, and basic research which normally endeavour s to extend the horizons of the known in the quest for knowledge that may one day have a purpose. Sometimes basic research is curiosity-driven; it is exploration of new or poorly-known territories, a path that design may also take. On many accounts, design is excluded from the domain of research – although it is inherently present to the extent that experiments are designed. The real presence of …

Resistant Geometry, Architecture And Subjectivity., Tom Loveday

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Can there be a de-subjectivised architectural design practice? This paper draws on some of the issues discussed in my PhD in regard to the relationship between art and architecture. The paper starts with the proposition that with the revival of visually aestheticised architectural design through digital representation, that there is a strengthening of “Enlightenment Subjectivity” in architectural design. It is proposed that this strengthening draws design in architecture away from trends towards de- subjectivisation in other disciplines such as art theory and philosophy. It is expected that the conclusion to the paper will be that, due to this resurgence of …

Is Writing A Design Discipline?, Alke Groeppel-Wegener

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The objective of this paper is to reflect on the position and potential of the process of writing in contemporary undergraduate design education in the UK. By asking how far the activity of writing is a design process in itself (as the production of written material goes through the same cycles as designing does), the question will be asked whether there is a more pronounced place not only for encouraging students to use writing, but also teaching them about different styles (that include but are not exclusive to academic writing) on the curriculum. Would a greater awareness of writing as …

Romanticism Reinforced: The Construction Of Nature Through 'Green' Advertising And The Implications For Ecodesign., Marie Sierra

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper makes a critical assessment of the construction of nature through advertising. Like any other subject, the complex and rich subject of nature can be portrayed metaphorically. Due to its complexity, the idea of nature is often depicted obliquely in advertising, rather than through direct pictorial representation. There is fertile ground for this approach in the advertising of home appliances – particularly appliances designed to be ‘green’, or what is referred to in design culture as ‘ecodesign’.

A Cross-Cultural Study On Colour Emotion And Colour Harmony., Li-Chen Ou, Ming Ronnier Luo, Guihua Cui, Angela Wright, Andrée Woodcock, Monica Billger, Beata Stahre, Rafael Huertas, Alain Tremeau, Eric Dinet, Klaus Richter

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study investigates: (a) the relationship between colour combinations and adjective combinations and (b) to verify the colour harmony theory developed by Angela Wright (called the Wright theory in this study). Two experiments were carried out with subjects from the following six countries: Britain, China, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. In Experiment 1, 100 adjectives and 32 colours were used as stimuli presented on a calibrated Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitor. All the colour stimuli were selected evenly from four colour groups, CG 1 to CG 4, which were defined according to the Wright theory, and so were the adjectives, …

Reading Digital Clones In The Conservation Process., Matthew Cooke

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores notions of ‘the virtual facsimile’, the copy and representation at a practice-oriented level and discusses them with relation to notions of ‘tracking’, ‘recording’ and ‘annotating’ design and design history through digital means. It begins by asking the question: if previsualisation software packages are useful in the representation phase of a construction project, how useful are they as markers and postvisualisation tools for pre-existing structures? Indeed, once modelled, how far departed from the original is the facsimile? Is it possible to extend the usefulness of these tools to include the representation of that which is already built and …

Disciplining Creativity: Neoliberalism And Design Education In New Zealand., Amanda Bill

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Two decades of educational reform in New Zealand have resulted in one of the most market-oriented regimes of higher education in the OECD. In this environment, enrolments in design and other creative degree courses that seem to provide an opportunity for individual expression and self-development have greatly increased. However, representatives of traditional industry sectors complain that there are hardly any jobs for these graduates, and little in the way of career paths. The situation thus seems to confound human capital approaches to education policy, in which tactics such as high fees and student loans are meant to exert a conservative …

A Study On Japanese Traditional Sweets Wrapped In Natural Materials: The Relationship Between Japanese Contemporary Package Design And The Japanese Wrapping Culture., Karen Meiko Nawa, Shinnichi Ishimura

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Focusing particularly in packages that used either bamboo sheathes or bamboo leaves as wrappings, the purpose of this research is to investigate the actual condition of traditional package design in Japan, taking contemporary Japanese sweets wrapped in natural materials as the study’s subject. Both of the mentioned above can be folded in various ways and possess optimal properties as wrapping materials. Supported by literature materials, the method consisted of a field survey, sample collection and data analysis. The field survey was focused on the southernmost Kyushu Island’s Fukuoka Prefecture and some of the samples were collected in the main Honshu …

Beyond Desktop Usability: Web Site Usability And Its Evaluation., Stephen Ar Scrivener, Chao-Yang Yang, Andrée Woodcock

DRS Biennial Conference Series

An Internet questionnaire survey was conducted in order to explore whether web users’ and web designers’ conceptions of usability differ, and whether these conceptions are encompassed within conventional HCI usability. The primary results of the survey were that: 1 The users and designers had different viewpoints. For example, the users wanted web sites that provide diverse functions and information, whereas the designers thought web sites should be designed thematically. Similarly, the users valued information content over visual design, the designers vice versa. 2 Usability goals, such as stickiness (i.e., a web site’s ability to engender user attachment to it), attractiveness …

User Preferences For Personalities Of Entertainment Robots According To The Users' Psychological Types., Sona Kwak, Myung-Suk Kim

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a design process for constructing personality of an entertainment robot based on psychological types, and investigate user preferences for robot personalities according to the users’ psychological types. In this study, four temperaments derived from 16 personality types in a psychological type indicator, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), were applied to design the personality of an entertainment robot. The case study and experiment yielded several results. First, the major experimenters match reactions with robot temperaments. From this result, we could see that robot temperaments are useful guidelines to design the entertainment robot’s personality. …

Applying Image Descriptors To The Legibility Assessment Of English Alphabets And Words., Dengchuan Cai, Manlai You, Chia-Fen Chi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Two studies were conducted to test the legibility of the English alphabets and words. The first study aims to test the impact of character width on legibility of English alphabets. The second study extended the legibility test of the English alphabet to the words. Sixteen university students participated in the two experiments to discriminate the English alphabets and words initially displayed on a PC screen at its minimum size and enlarged gradually until the participant could recognize it. The results showed that all main effects of type styles, character height, and character width were significant in the legibility test of …

Being, Seeing And Being Seen: Accessing The Social Language Of Clothing Style For Use Within Design Research., Fiona Candy, John Mcaleavy

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper will introduce a new approach to the study of clothing and involves visual ethnographic research methods that can support empirical investigation in to the range of personal and social meanings associated with everyday styles of dress. It has been developed as a result of a multidisciplinary collaboration between fashion, video production, illustration, and animation designers. Research has involved street photography, one to one interviews, group clothing workshops, body language video documentation and post production experimentation with animation and rotoscoping digital imaging techniques. Initial findings are that our approach has a variety of potential applications for practitioners and researchers …

Visual/Verbal Meaning Collaboration In Redefining Interplay., Susan Hagan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The study of visual/verbal design has not yet resulted in effective principles of practice and analysis for the designer because our reigning perspectives either recast visual messages as objects to be “read,” reduce textual elements to unexamined “background material,” or remove message interests altogether in order to focus on the “presentation” of ideas separated from the ideas themselves. Given particular goals, these reducibility assumptions can yield reasonable, if incomplete, analyses. This fact explains both the persistence and popularity of these assumptions in light of their limitations. However, these assumptions ignore the status of visual and verbal elements as sui generis …

Designerly Research: Towards Design's Own Research Paradigm., Fatina Saikaly

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design research draws on different research paradigms from both the sciences and the humanities. Two empirical works about design research at the doctoral level demonstrated the emergence of a research paradigm distinct from research in the sciences and the humanities. The first empirical work was a comparative study of ten Ph.D. programmes in design. The selected cases were from different geographical-cultural contexts. The study of each case was divided into three parts: the study of the programme, the study of a selected Ph.D. thesis and an interview with the coordinator of the programme or with a Ph.D. supervisor. The second …

Chance Moves In The Gridded Garden: Experimental Investigations In Chinese Scholar Garden Design., Greg Missingham

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper discusses experiments in rule-governed, though chance-based approaches to the design of contemporary Chinese-styled gardens inspired, in part, by contemporary minimalist landscape architectural design tactics. The results are compared both with other versions of rule-based understandings of the design of traditional Chinese scholar gardens and with such gardens, themselves. While inherent contradictions in the rule-governed approaches are exposed, their utility is demonstrated through discussion of a first and then a later version of the design of the Gridded Garden.

The Big Brand: Designing A National Identity System. A New Australian Flag And Supporting Ensigns., Russell Kennedy

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The paper tests the Advance Australia National Flag in the context of an extended visual identity program. The colonial flag system used by the Britain to brand its empire has provided an insight into the possible implementation of any new Australian flag design. The flag of the colonising country assumes a position of dominance in the canton or first quarter. The individual symbol or badge of the colony is then positioned in the field (prominent back ground colour) of the flag. If it is important for Australia to retain its state flags then any new Australian flag design should consider …

Hermeneutics And Cross-Cultural Design: Reflections On Community Consultation And Collaboration By Designers In Fairfield, Sydney., Susan Stewart

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper looks at design as cultural activity and cultural production. Specifically, it looks at design of the built-environment within the context of culturally diverse communities, especially those communities within which both recent migrants and more established residents are in the process of negotiating new, cross-cultural, local identities. What is the role of the designer within such contexts? As bearer of an authoritative western professional tradition, the designer is a powerful figure within any cross-cultural negotiation. Where do the responsibilities of such professionals lie? Traditionally the answers to such questions have been guided by conceptions of the designer as either …

Questioning Understanding: The Cultural Perception Of Visual Communication By Recent Immigrants To The U.S., Patricia Boman

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research project documents the cultural perceptions and general comprehension of recent U.S. immigrants (immigrated within last 3 years) to visual communication designed to market a product or service. During interviews, participants will share their understanding of a variety of visual communication including: product advertisements, marketing brochures, packaging, and multimedia related to specific products and services ranging in quality and type from ordinary to luxury. Interview questions include but are not limited to the following: What does each example communicate to them? What do they think is the key idea or message of the example? Do they have a positive …

New Knowledge In Design: A Hermeneutic Perspective On Design Activity And The Production Of Knowledge., Sally Mclaughlin

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Most definitions of research refer to the concept of adding to, or developing, the knowledge of a domain. Activities and outcomes are recognised as research based on assumptions about what constitutes knowledge. The relationship of design to the production of knowledge can be problematic if we adopt what Heidegger referred to as a metaphysical view of the world. From a metaphysical point of view the scientist is a finder, a discoverer, while the designer is primarily a maker. The scientist uncovers truths about the world that complement existing representations of reality. The maker, on the other hand, applies knowledge and …

Incorporating Research Into Master Of Industrial Design Projects And Theses: Six Students With Six Design Research Paths., Lorraine Justice

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper serves the purpose of providing an overview of six graduate students projects and theses that incorporated traditional research methods throughout their learning process. An overview of the Master of Industrial Design Program is provided in order to understand how their studies are couched and regulated. The six students whose work is presented represent the varied paths and processes an individualized Master’s degree with design research takes. Following these project overviews are recommendations for those who are working to incorporate research methods into their design curriculum, and for those who want to prepare Masters students for doctoral studies in …

Designing The Process., Ype Cuperus

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design has many meanings and even more interpretations, practical if applied to the built environment, or cultural if applied as a means of cultural expression. This paper looks at the first option, design as a method to improve the built environment by intervention and transformation. Observations in the world of architectural design show that designing the ordinary and planning the design process is alien to the young designer. This paper discusses ways to create this awareness. It first describes design as exploring the possible, yet unexpected future: the expected future does not need to be design anymore (we already know …

Design As A Device., Sidney Newton

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper will describe the collaborative research project as a case study in how design and other disciplines intersect. Critically, it will argue that what design brings to such a situation may have less to do with design as a particular methodology, and more to do with design as a new device for understanding and engaging with the material content of the project. The paper will argue that significant qualities otherwise (and typically) attributed to ‘the nature of design’, can in fact be accounted for through the phenomenological concept of ‘introducing’. This alternative account has clear implications for the future …

Women, War And Peace: Mobilizing For Security And Justice In The 21st Centruy, Noeleen Heyzer

Joan B. Kroc Distinguished Lecture Series

Table of Contents:

Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice--p.4.
Joan B. Kroc Distinguished Lecture Series--p.6.
Biography--p.10.
Interview--p.12.
Introduction by Dr. Dee. Aker--p.24.
Lecture--p.27.
Questions and Answers--p.44.
Related Resources--p.52.
About the University of San Diego--p.58.

They Shoot Single People, Don't They?, Dianne J. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

They Shoot Single People, Don't They? is a romantic comedy of errors set in Boston about Lexie, a twenty-five year old pediatric nurse with still perky breasts and lightly dimpled thighs who can figure out pediatric drug dosages, but is so severely relationship-challenged that she can't make any choice at all when it comes to men. Her life becomes a convoluted mess that includes two guys and a tangled web of lies.

After Marcus dumps her with a post-it note taped to her refrigerator door, Lexie thinks that her five-year plan to get married and have a baby are back …

Lillian Brock Flemming Oral History, Lillian Brock Flemming, Courtney Tollison

Furman University Oral Histories

Video interview with Dr. Lillian Brock Flemming, one of the first two African American females to graduate Furman University. Dr. Flemming enrolled at Furman in 1967 as one of the university’s first African American women. She graduated in 1971, and earned her Masters of Education from Furman in 1975. In 1981, she became the first African-American woman to serve on the Greenville City Council, and in 1989 she was elected Mayor Pro Tempore. In 1995, she became Furman’s first female African-American trustee, and in 2014 Lillian was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Furman University. Dr. Flemming begins …

The Inkwell, Armstrong Atlantic State University

The Inkwell

No abstract provided.

From Wounded To Woman: The Demasculinization Of Hemingway’S Wounded Male Characters, Myla B. Morris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During his time of service in the Italian Army in World War I, Ernest Hemingway was injured. He received a non-life-threatening wound and was forever changed. In his article, "Ernest Hemingway: The Life as Fiction and the Fiction as Life," Jackson J. Benson proposes the idea of Hemingway's "wounding what if?" that follows this course of thought: "What if I were wounded and made crazy?, what would happen if I were sent back to the front? I was only wounded in an accident, what do the really brave ones think of me? (351)" Shortly following the war, Hemingway was wounded …

A P300-Based Brain-Computer Interface: Testing An Alternative Method Of Communication, Eric W. Sellers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study evaluates the effectiveness of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system that operates by detecting a P300 elicited by one of four randomly presented stimuli (i.e., YES, NO, PASS, END). Two groups of participants were tested. The first group included three ALS patients that varied in degree of disability, but all retained the ability to communicate; the second group included three Non-ALS controls. Each participant participated in ten experimental sessions during a period of approximately 6 weeks. Sessions were conducted either at the participant's home or in the lab. During each run the participant's task was to attend to …

Road Crack Condition Performance Modeling Using Recurrent Markov Chains And Artificial Neural Networks, Jidong Yang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Timely identification of undesirable pavement crack conditions has been a major task in pavement management. Up to date, myriads of pavement performance models have been developed for forecasting pavement crack condition with the traditional preferred techniques being the use of regression relationships developed from laboratory and/or field statistical data. However, it becomes difficult for regression techniques to predict the crack performance accurately and robustly in the presence of a variety of tributary factors, high nonlinearity, and uncertainty. With the advancement of modeling techniques, two innovative breeds of models, Artificial Neural Networks and Markov Chains, have drawn increasing attention from researchers …