DE4019 - Design Theory

The teaching and learning strategy for this module is to combine tutor-led lecture and seminar based learning with group work, debate and field-work. The exercise and assignments will draw upon the research methods and analysis skills introduced and practiced in the formally taught sessions. Assignments will be supported by individual and group tutorials.

This module is supported by specialist component tutors within formally taught timetabled sessions and via tutorials that help to structure and support your approach to assessed work. Module contact time provides the opportunity for you to attend lectures and presentations, engage in hands-on product analyses, receive briefings, participate in group exercises and receive on-going tutor and peer feedback (enabling you to use the views of others in the development or enhancement of your work). Contact time also provides an opportunity to clarify and discuss assessment criteria.

Tutor Guided Independent Learning/Student Independent Learning will help you to make constructive use of feedback received in class, and to take responsibility to direct your own learning needs. Such learning may include a range of activities such as contextual reading, studying and analysing artefacts, or employing the methods taught for researching how people interact with designed artefacts. The formal formative assessment points in the module provide you with a means to prioritise and structure this learning and promote personal responsibility in managing your workload. Formative assessment also provides you with the opportunity to apply feedback and improve your competencies before your final summative assessment.
The module has a specific virtual learning environment (eLearning Portal (eLP)) which acts as resource where you can access all the relevant documentation including module briefs and guides, lecture notes, presentations and assessment requirements. The eLP also provides access to Turnitin® for electronic submission of written assignments.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

On successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

Knowledge & Understanding:

? Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of design research methods through investigations of the world around you.
? Synthesise the ideas of others, in order to develop, know and articulate your own position with respect contemporary design issues.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

? Identify, review and discuss design related issues or topics in a scholarly manner.
? Evidence an ability to write clearly and precisely and use appropriate academic referencing.

Personal Value attributes

? Evidence your visual and verbal communication skills in project work.

Each of the module themes—Designers, Users and Technologies—will be taught via exercises and assignments throughout the module. These activities are formatively assessed as part of the teaching of the module.

Summative assessment of the module is via the submission of a portfolio at the end of block 1 (50%) and a portfolio at the end of block 2 (50%). The portfolios will include assignments completed (across each of the three module themes) throughout the respective teaching block. Each portfolio addresses all the MLOs.

Feedback is written and delivered via tutorial review after the submission of each portfolio.

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Furniture and product designers must often consider the specifics of their design challenge or opportunity with reference to existing knowledge, principles or approaches. In the design of a chair, for example, designers come across many ‘problems’ that have already been ‘solved’ by countless other designers in the past. Decisions around comfort can be made with reference to analyses of existing chairs, or ergonomic textbooks. Consideration of materials and construction techniques can be informed by research into manufacturing processes. And questions of aesthetics draw upon a designer’s knowledge of historic and contemporary practice, enabling them to develop and apply an appropriate artistic sensibility. This module will introduce students to the knowledge and research methods—the ‘design theory’—that will come to support their design practice in this way.

The module is taught around 3 themes: Designers, Users, and Technologies. In Designers, students are expected to begin to develop their own position on the role of design practice and think carefully about what contemporary material culture could and should be like. In Users, students will study ergonomics, learn how design work can be informed by paying attention to people’s interactions with the world, and be encouraged to place designed products in the wider context of life. In Technologies, students learn how to research and better understand materials, manufacturing processes and the potential of technology to drive innovative design practice.