Cognitive Problem Solving Behaviors of Design Teams In Di erent Task
Year: 2012
Editor: Assoc. Prof. Poul Kyvsgaard Hansen, Professor John Rasmussen, Assoc. Prof. Kaj A. Jřrgensen, Assoc. Prof. Christian Tollestrup
Author: Ensici, Ayhan; Bayazit, Nigan
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: 1: Aalborg University, Denmark; 2: Design Society, United Kingdom
ISBN: 978-87-91831-51-5
Abstract
In this research, the design processes employed in three different design tasks that are undertaken by a design team are analysed. Cognitive behaviors of the design team have been observed in an experimental environment to fix individual and environmental factors. The team problem solving behaviour is also put under scrutiny in the context of the decision making cognitive acts that are displayed during the design processes. TCTA (Team Cognitive Task Analysis) approach has been utilized in order to ensure the applicability to practice and validity of the results of the study. The design processes employed in the Routine, Innovative and Original design tasks by design team are observed to be able to describe the effects of the various design tasks over the problem solving behavior and cognitive decision making processes. Decision making is accepted as the most critical step in the problem solving process. In this research the analyses cognitive processes have been done by defining cognitive decision components and the actions appeared under these components. Design team developed different numbers of design decisions during the three tasks although they have spent similar amount of time for each of the task. Every verbal utterance produced by design team members in three design processes has been transcribed and coded by pre defined decision component categories and cognitive actions. The results posit that there is not any regular relation between design tasks and decision components. Designers in the team were more satisfied from design process and the decisions they made with decrease of their familiarity to the tasks. If the team design processes in all design tasks are considered, it is obviously could be seen that design team tend to be more ‘solution oriented’ when the design problems’ solution space gets wider. In other words design team focuses to the solutions more when solving problems with wider solution spaces.
Keywords: Design teams, problem solving, cognitive decision making, design process