ON THE APPROPRIATENESS OF APPROPRIATE JUDGEMENTS IN DESIGN EVALUATION

DS 82: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE15), Great Expectations: Design Teaching, Research & Enterprise, Loughborough, UK, 03-04.09.2015

Year: 2015
Editor: Guy Bingham, Darren Southee, John McCardle, Ahmed Kovacevic, Erik Bohemia, Brian Parkinson
Author: Diels, Cyriel; Ghassan, Aysar
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Coventry University
Section: Enterprise
Page(s): 487-492
ISBN: 978-1-904670-62-9

Abstract

This paper discusses issues related to the knowledge universities can disseminate to commercial
organizations in enterprise-driven ventures. It focuses on the area of automotive design. This industry
is challenged with designing small, yet desirable and beautiful vehicles. In response, we present the
findings of an empirical study which aimed to evaluate if, and to what extent, previously identified
automotive design principles were related to vehicle aesthetics. Automotive design experts were asked
to rate a set of vehicles. Research suggests that such “appropriate judges”—as defined by shared
knowledge and experience—should have a considerable degree of consensus of opinion with regards
to aesthetics. However, this study demonstrated that between experts, large differences existed with
regards to their aesthetic appraisal and underlying design principles. These findings are at odds with
the suggestion that experts should be able to reach a high level of consensus provided the “judges”
share a common education and experience in the relevant domain. This paper puts forward possible
explanations for these findings: (1) a lack of agreement in terms of the meaning of commonly used
descriptive terms in automotive design; (2) existing descriptive principles may not fully account for
differences in appreciation of automotive aesthetics; (3) philosophical issues related to ‘essentialising’
terminology which characterizes human experience. We conclude by suggesting that through
conducting design research, academics may be able to challenge preconceived notions in design. This
ability may in turn fuel design innovation and thus may be very valuable in enterprise ventures
between universities and commercial organizations.

Keywords: Aesthetics, automotive design, expertise, enterprise-driven research, user experience

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