Task design and task analysis for empirical studies into design activity

摘要

In many laboratory studies, design activity has been investigated by observing individual designers or design teams dealing with design tasks. The results are highly valuable for a better understanding of design thinking and acting, and for further development of design theory. However, there is a lack of comparability - and often of validity - of these studies. One reason for this is, in some respect, inadequate attention to the design tasks used in laboratory experiments to be performed by the participants of these experiments. This contribution therefore focuses on the design, analysis and standardization of design tasks for laboratory studies, and proposes a more systematic approach to task design in this area of research. Two task designs are described, which have been applied and verified in an empirical study into individual design heuristics and the applicability of design methodology in early design stages.