Design Science

About This Course

Design science is the field or research concerned with understanding and improving the design process. The scientific method is applied to analyse the design process as well as systematically develop and evaluate new design methods. Design Science is informed by methods from grounded theory, psychology, systems engineering, and design practice. Studies may involve observation of the design process in practice-based or academic settings as well as controlled experiments. This course will review prevailing research, and deep dive into state of the art design thinking methodologies. A core focus of the course will be to explore how researchers develop new design methods as well as extract fundamental insights from the study of design.
Insights from design research in engineering, architecture, science, psychology, and business, will be presented. Students will work in small teams on a research project to systematically develop a new design method as well as design a strategic experimental evaluation. Various industry case studies will also be presented and dissected to explore state-of-the art in applied design thinking methods.
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to apply advanced design thinking methods as well as conduct scientifically grounded experiments. Students will gain an understanding of how to apply statistics and craft well controlled design studies in order to identify meaningful and repeatable phenomena within the design process.