Conference Agenda

Although a visual language often takes precedence as the main communicator in design, text can act as a fundamental medium of developing ideas. Writing not only has similar capabilities as sketching in order to externalize concepts, but also when developing cognitive thinking and communicate with others. Using instructional, social and reflective lenses, this ethnographic study catalogues and analyzes examples of written language present across several design studios at The Ohio State University. Artifacts presented include writing prompted by design instructors, written interactions between peers and student self-awareness delivered through reflective writing. Acting as a purveyor of language, writing serves a method for understanding how students develop a sense of professional practice, communicate with others in the field and build a sense of self as emerging designers.

We all use value speak in our everyday conversations. Within the field of design, the implications of value are even more integral: we expose and negotiate value in order to create “desirable” experiences and avoid “bad” products, and our respective ideas of value guide our actions and judgements of what is “worthwhile” or “important”. Yet despite its prevalence, our understanding of each respective value referent is often ambiguous and subjective. In this research, we examine three grand narratives of value and ascertain how each representation relates to design. We argue that the strengths and limitations inherent in theories of sociological, economic, and linguistic value are mirrored in their related design praxes. We propose that this holistic awareness enables a more critical and expansive assessment of design methods and practices.

Archetypal images transcend cultures and time, being easily recognized, and absorbed by worldwide audiences. Thus, understanding how archetypal meaning is conveyed through design is undoubtedly a useful tool for character designers in the animation industry. Because popular animated films often target culturally diverse audiences worldwide, stereotypes and archetypes are often used to communicate a character’s identity and narrative role quickly and effectively. This paper presents trends of representation of the Mentor archetype found in female character design, from thirty popular and contemporary animated feature films. These trends emerged through a process of data collection and analysis. By mapping the current paradigm of female character design in this context, we aim at contributing to the understanding of design practices in animation, while fostering critical thinking around gender representation in mainstream media, and ultimately contributing to a more just representation of women.

Morphological analysis is often used in the conceptual design process because it provides a structured and systematic approach to decompose design problems, improving the completeness and diversity of creative solutions. However, it still relies heavily on designers' professional knowledge and experience when decomposing design problems and proposing solutions, which is a challenge for designers. In this study, we propose an LLMs-augmented morphological analysis approach for conceptual design. We refine the design process as three main stages: decomposition, generation, and combination, offering targeted guidance and support to designers when applying morphological analysis. In addition, we introduced a feedback mechanism to develop more appropriate solutions to specific problems. Experimental results show that our approach improves the quality of innovative conceptual designs and reduces cognitive load. Furthermore, it augments the interactive experience between the designer and LLMs.

Traditional design practice primarily relies on human designers' skills and knowledge for problem solving. With the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs), there is a significant possibility of leveraging the language processing capabilities to assist designers in increasing the speed, rigor, and effectiveness of various design activities. In the context of service design projects, we embarked on an investigation of utilizing LLMs to streamline labor-intensive tasks such as analyzing user research data more effectively. Through our investigation, we propose a mixed LLM-human approach in the Design Process, especially for qualitative data analysis. This paper discusses our observations from the investigation of leveraging LLMs for qualitative data analysis in a service design project and elaborates the proposed approach. We believe that these learnings hold broader relevance for the design discipline, empowering designers to delegate tedious design tasks to AI (LLMs), thus optimizing their workflow and productivity.