Innovation and Design of Products

Code

ME-IDP1

Version

4.0

Offered by

Mechanical Engineering

ECTS

Prerequisites

The course is for student from the 6th semester or equivalent in an attempt to enhance their product design and development skills from the end user and business perspectives.
The student is required to be familiar with basic engineering skills within the areas of 1) Materials and material processing technologies; 2) Design methods including technical drawing; 3) Basic business economics and teamwork.
The course also welcomes student with qualifications in the fields of industrial design, marketing, or similar.

Main purpose

The main purpose of the course is to strengthen student’s acquaintance with engineering procedures within the development and assessment of mechanical products from both re-design and conceptual design perspectives. Human-centered design thinking, business assessment and innovation strategies will be of emphasis.

Knowledge

Upon the completion of the course, the student will acquire knowledge:

To define human-centered design.
To describe user experience (UX) design methods.
To identify the fundamental ergonomics aspects in good product design.
To find, characterize and select the most relevant methods/ tools for user needs identification, acquisition and interpretation.
To identify and choose between different design approaches.
To define and formulate customer value proposition.
To classify, interpret and implement business models for product design.
To reason system interconnectedness exploration is essential in design thinking.

Skills

Upon the completion of the course, the student will be able

To extensively apply User Experience (UX) design methods throughout a design project.
To implement correctly the selected methods/tools (e.g. Von Hippel, function analysis, think-aloud, role –play, mood board, etc.) to achieve their designated goals for data analysis/synthesis from the product redesign and human-centered design perspectives.
To relate, evaluate, and reason the key findings derived from the various undertaken analyses and syntheses.
To identify and translate user needs to product design requirements.
To assess solution propositions from business, risk and functionality perspectives (e.g. DeBono, HOQ, 6D's of exponential technology).
To implement disruptive thinking to reflect on design solutions and to reframe design problem

Competences

Upon completion, the student will be familiar with and be able to implement Design Thinking models to start, plan, innovate, and complete a design project to a conceptual level by taking into account the relevant multiple aspects including system thinking and sustainability, user experience and business innovation

Topics

Teaching methods and study activities

The student shall expect 138 hours of workload distributed across various study activities including lectures, group works, workshops and design projects.

There will be 3 lessons per week for 12 weeks. Pre-lesson preparation, if assigned, is required.

Ongoing prototype making and testing is necessary for progressive feedback

Resources

1. Wickens, C.D. Lee, J., Liu, Y., Becker, S.G. (2004), An Introduction to Human Factors Engineer-ing, 2nd Ed., Pearson Education, Inc.
2. Norman, D.A. (2013), The design of everyday things-revised and expanded edition, MIT Press.
3. McCarthy, J. , Wright, P. (2004), Technology as experience. (Notes on ItsLearning)
4. Norman, D.A. (2004), Emotional Design, why we love (or hate) everyday things. (Notes on ItsLearning)
5. Nigel Cross: Engineering Design Methods/ Strategies for Product Design 4th edition
6. Hidden Needs Analysis: Creating Breakthrough Products - An Interview with Keith Goffin (Notes on ItsLearning)
7. Philip Kotler:Marketing Management – Product Life Cycle & Marketing Management – Marketing Mix (Notes on ItsLeaning)
8. The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3228477_The_Twelve_Different_Ways_for_Companies_to_Innovate
1. Donald Firesmith, Software Engineering Institute, U.S.A: Specifying Good Requirements http://www.jot.fm/issues/issue_2003_07/column7/

Evaluation

Examination

Prerequisites for exam:

All assignments are submitted by the deadline.

Exam type:

Oral Examination in two sessions:

1) 15 minutes of group presentation of the key findings from the mandatory design project.

2) With the presence of all other group members, 15 minutes individual oral examination based upon the submissions and an additional question drawn at the examination. A list containing the additional questions will be accessible at minimum one week before the examination date.

Examination counts for 100% of the final grade.

Internal censor

Tools allowed:

The group-basis submissions and the tested (and refined) prototype. The lecturer will provide at the examination the additional questions list for reference purposes.

Re-exam:

Same as ordinary examination.

Grading criteria

The Danish 7 point scale

Additional information

Responsible

Yoke-Chin Lai

Valid from

8/1/2023 12:00:00 AM

Course type

7. semester
Elective for Mechanical Engineering

Keywords

Human-centered Design Thinking, Usability; System Thinking, UX Design Methods, Innovation Redesign Strategies, Business assessment, Disruptive Thinking