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Narrative drives design decision-making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2024

Scott Ferguson ,
Lisa Retzlaff ,
Kris Bryden  and
Kenneth Mark Bryden
Scott Ferguson*
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University, United States of America
Lisa Retzlaff
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University, United States of America
Kris Bryden
Affiliation:
Iowa State University, United States of America
Kenneth Mark Bryden
Affiliation:
Iowa State University, United States of America
*
scott_ferguson@ncsu.edu

Abstract

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Scholars in economics, psychology, and business have recently defined narrative as the underlying mechanism by which humans internally process information and drive a decision forward. In this paper, we study narrative's use in design across Design Society publications. We discuss how narrative's role as the driver of design decision-making is an important, but missing, element of the design literature. We explain how engineers will be expected to move the design process forward despite facing decisions where the information is simultaneously too much to process, conflicting, and incomplete.

Keywords

decision makingnarrativedesign cognitionengineering design
Type
Human Behaviour and Design Creativity
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 4: DESIGN 2024 , May 2024 , pp. 965 - 974
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2024.

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