Exploring the Effect of Design Tasks on Conceptual Design Activities A Design Protocol Study Based on the FBS Ontology

This paper reports an experimental study comparing the cognitive processes during conceptual design of two different classes of design requirements for the same groups of industrial design students. Using a task-independent approach based on the FBS design ontology, this study transformed the observations of designing processes into sequences of design issues using the FBS coding scheme. The examination of design issue distributions showed there were no statistically significant differences found between the two sets of design tasks in the beginning of designing processes, but significant differences occurred following the beginning. Results suggest that the nature of the design requirements may influence how industrial design students generate and develop solutions and their attitude to problem formulation