'Gut Feeling' in Designing and Developing New Products in Small Creative Companies

“直觉”通常被理解为创意设计的一个隐含部分，但它的过程没有被观察到，也很少被理解。设计师认为自己是直觉的，雇主希望他们在设计消费品时表现出直觉的方式。相比之下，工程设计师不应该表现出这些特征，并且通常会以明显更基于规则的方式工作。观察设计的历史通常是以简化论和理性为基础。该提案旨在通过引发实践设计师和小公司内与设计密切相关的人的观点和经验，明确直觉及其价值。这将包括在消费品的早期设计阶段记录选定的直观轨道或主题的回忆。在大学的初步范围研讨会后，将在每家公司举行为期6个月的网络活动，并将涉及设计师在交流中使用的记录话语的分析。这将在实际的设计决策中建立直觉的地方，并产生原始的研究材料。设计师们在“事后诸葛亮”中的直觉将被记录下来。在每个公司内部，这将试图捕捉选定的关键直觉决策的开始、演变历程、生命周期和地理位置的关键细节。这将涉及研究学生的极其敏感的参与，并产生相当数量的基于文本的叙述，这将是道德上的发展和评估。软件（Nvivo 9）将用于管理这些叙述以及分析中出现的概念和想法的模型开发，同时提供分析过程的审计跟踪。这项研究将得到以前的工作在知识转移和风险设计的主管最初由AHRC资助：RG/AN 6609/APN 17512，1/2/04-30/4/07，并将形成一个良好的基础，参与小公司和传播。参与将提供一种有效和新颖的手段，在新产品开发项目的长期内，在真实的情况下确定决策。通过从设计师的原始决策中捕捉直觉主题，计划将直觉的明确性质和价值体现在每个公司的详细案例研究材料中。直觉或直觉思维的更广泛含义，包括设计中的创造力，作为设计产品的核心组成部分，将有助于更清晰地理解设计产品中的创新。它希望在日益压力和限制的设计环境中为创造力提供辩护。这项研究很重要，因为它将提供有关设计，设计过程和参与式研究方法的新知识。它还将提高参与公司及其设计师利用直觉的能力，通过在工作完成时举办公司内部研讨会。传播将通过期刊出版面向学术界，但也面向参与的公司，并将包括旨在进一步研究的国际网络发展。

'Gut feeling' is often understood to be an implicit part of creative designing yet its process has not been observed and is little understood. Designers think of themselves as intuitive, and they are expected by employers to behave in intuitive ways when designing consumer goods. In contrast, engineering designers are not expected to exhibit these characteristics and would typically work in apparently more rule-based ways. The history of observing designing has often been largely reductionist and rationally based. This proposal aims to make gut feeling and its value explicit by eliciting the views and experiences of practicing designers and those closely linked to design within small firms. This will include the recording the recollections of selected intuitive tracks or themes within early stage designing of consumer goods. After an initial scoping workshop in the University, a number of network events will held be over 6 months in each company and will involve analysis of the recorded discourses used by designers in their exchanges. This will establish the places of gut feeling in practical design decisions and produce original research material. Designers' gut feeling in 'hindsight stories' will be recorded. Within each company this will attempt to capture critical details of the start, evolution journey, lifespan and geography of selected critical intuitive decisions. This will involve extremely sensitive participation by the research student and generate a considerable amount of text-based narrative, which will be ethically developed and evaluated. Software (Nvivo 9) will be used to manage these narratives and the development of models of the concepts and ideas emerging from the analysis, while providing an audit trail of the analysis process. The research will be underpinned by previous work in both Knowledge Transfer and Risk in Design by the supervisors originally funded by AHRC: RG/AN6609/APN17512, 1/2/04-30/4/07 and will form a sound basis for participation with small companies and in dissemination. Participation will provide an effective and novel means of identifying decision-making in authentic situations, over extended periods within new product development projects. By capturing intuitive themes from designer's original decisions it is planned that the explicit nature and value of intuition will be characterised in detailed case study material for each company. The wider implications of gut feeling or intuitive thinking, including creativity in design, as a central component of designed products will contribute to a clearer understanding of innovation in designing products. It is hoped to provide a defence of creativity within increasingly pressured and restricted design environments. This research is important because it will provide new knowledge about designing, the design process and participatory research methods. It will also increase the capability of participating companies and their designers to utilise intuition, through in-company seminars at the completion of the work. Dissemination will be for academic communities through journal publication but also for participating companies and will include international network development aimed at further research.