Design Sciences

Background

Our Design Sciences research includes the establishment of theories to underpin future generations of computer aided design (CAD) system and the emerging science of touch-based soft metrology. Our CAD research focuses on technologies that will underpin future product design systems, such as computational shape synthesis and design & structural optimisation, and those needed to support the design of service products. In parallel, our touch based soft metrology research focuses on tactile perception and its application to domains including affective engineering, tactile displays, healthcare robotics and packaging.  Through our participation in the University’s Centre for Socio-Technical Systems Design we are contributing to the development of socio-technical understanding that can be used to support whole systems thinking in the design and deployment of responses to today’s societal needs.

Current Research

  • Product Data Engineering

Product data representation is fundamental both to enabling companies to exchange data and communicate effectively, and in the design of well-founded engineering information systems that provide effective product-related business process support.

  • Product Design

Product design includes requirements management, shape synthesis and broader product design-related issues.

Requirements management – key when taking a systems engineering approach to the integration of complex products.

Shape synthesis – an approach to the generation of shape that offers the potential to ensure that early product designs conform with brand identity.

Broader product design research issues are being addressed through collaborations under the AHRC/EPSRC Designing for the 21st Century research initiative.

  • Affective Engineering

Affective engineering is a Western interpretation of Kansei engineering which has been pioneered by Nagamachi at Hiroshima University since the 1970s. It is about measuring people's subjective responses to products, identifying the properties of the product eliciting those responses, and then using the information to improve the design. At Leeds, we have been applying the principles of affective engineering to product packaging through collaboration with the Faraday Packaging Partnership. The research is motivated by the need to provide scientific underpinnings for decisions made in product design.

Current & recent projects

  • Surface textures for enhanced communication (AFTEX)

This three-year project started in the summer of 2006 and is funded by the UK’s EPSRC. It aims to develop the ability to design tactile surface textures for use on products by identifying the features of a texture that generate particular affective responses and developing a process to synthesise new surface textures. This involves building an instrumented artificial fingertip to measure thermal and compliance contact properties; building a 3-dimensional virtual model of the fingertip; and self-report psychology experiments on real surfaces. The project is supported by the Faraday Packaging Partnership and MacDermid Autotype.

AFTEX project website.

  • Measuring feelings and expectations associated with texture (SynTex)

This EC FP6 funded project started in late 2006 and will run for three years. It is a collaboration between the companies Profactor, Prodintec and Fundermax, and the Universities of Leeds, Amsterdam, Groningen and Linz. The project aims to deliver a new measurement method to 'calculate' the degree to which emotions are associated with a texture; a new investigative method for the modelling of human interpretation of visual and tactile textures; and a method to synthesize artificial textures specified to evoke certain emotions.

SynTex project website.

  • Design Synthesis and Shape Generation website.
  • My Exhibition

My Exhibition project

The My Exhibition project was funded as part of the AHRC/EPSRC Designing for the 21st Century initiative. Led from Sheffield Hallam University, the iESD element applied product data representation techniques to the personalisation of museum exhibitions in collaboration with the Royal Armouries in Leeds. The project spanned design, engineering, computing and French literature.

DSSG

DSSG was a collaborative project spanning four disciplines: architecture, art and design, engineering and computing. The iESD element resulted in the world’s first 3D shape grammar-based design system that could compute curvilinear shapes early in a design activity. A software prototype that can be used to demonstrate how future generations of computer aided design systems might augment the activity of designing is available for download.

Designing with Vision

The Designing with Vision project explores the possibilities of using eye-tracking technology as an interface for systems intended to support the creation, exploration and development of design shape alternatives in conceptual design. The project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and we work in partnership with the Open University.

Designing with Vision website.

Video summary of our novel project.