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PILOT STUDY UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF FAILURE IN PRODUCT DESIGN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Carlye Anne Lauff*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Alexis Friesen
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Jessica Menold
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
*
Lauff, Carlye Anne, University of Minnesota, United States of America, clauff@umn.edu

Abstract

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Failure is part of the design process, and yet there is limited knowledge around how product design students perceive failure in their work. This pilot study aims to understand how a small sample size of undergraduate product design students conceptualize success and failure during specific stages of their design projects. This study uses a two-step data collection and analysis process. First, we collected responses from students on topics related to success and failure in a survey. Second, interviews were conducted with a subset of the survey respondents where these emergent topics were discussed and refined. In analyzing the responses, the research team used the Double Diamond Design process framework to organize what factors students deemed a success or failure within each stage. In summary, our preliminary findings indicate that determining success or failure is driven by the connection to the problem statement regardless of the stage; that student designers refer to failure as a spectrum but then in their examples showcase a binary view on the topic; and that examples of failure are often the opposite of success, reinforcing the notion of binary success vs. failure during student design projects.

Type
Article
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), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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