Towards an Understanding of the Programme in Industrial Design: Developing a New Pedagogical Methodology Through Action Research.

The aim of this PhD by practice research project is to reframe the concept of the programme for Industrial Designers, Industrial Design Educators, and Industrial Design students. The programme is a scheme for fulfilling the requirements of a design project, primarily used in Architecture in the USA. As a design educator and professional designer who has utilised the programme as a tool in the design process, and as a university lecturer teaching design I have experienced its potential as a pedagogical tool but also its limitations. The findings of this research project prove that a more flexible version of the programme is required, allowing it to change and be updated, hence the reframing of the programme evident in Chapter Three. The source review highlights how the programme has been interpreted in diverse ways in architecture, including attempts to make it more malleable. However, it is widely regarded as a rigid structure. The process of Industrial Design requires flexibility; therefore, it is an ideal application for a flexible version of the programme. The project concludes by exploring how the programme can be developed and reframed as a pedagogical tool, represented diagrammatically, to expand and improve decision-making in the design process. The ideology and use of the programme in this research project are examined by analysing of the design concepts of typology and morphology. The research focuses on the broad concepts and components of abstraction, de-composition, and transformation as part of the design of products and how decisions are shaped in Industrial Design through the lens of Constructive Design Research. These explorations are adapted into original pedagogical exercises via workshops for Industrial Design students to generate data towards a revision of the programme. The series of workshops are conducted through the methodology of Action Research, to facilitate new ways of working to support greater understanding of the design process, enabling more innovative design thinking. Transcripts and visual documentation of participants’ artefacts and reflections during and after the workshops are examined through thematic analysis and visual analysis to gather data. The information gathered and analysed aids in creating a new representational system of the programme that visually demonstrates its potential malleability as a contribution to knowledge. This flexible sequential diagram is developed to be utilised in improving the teaching of Industrial Design at undergraduate and postgraduate levels through example and project-based pedagogy in the studio, making it a contribution to knowledge. An additional contribution includes defining the terminology used in the practice and teaching of Industrial Design. Various terms used in Industrial Design have been adapted from other fields, although not explicitly defined for their use in Industrial Design. Exploring these terms enhances the discourse within the discipline.