Traditional methods for conducting performance evaluations of academic courses are somewhat limited in that they are unable to account for both quantitative and qualitative data. For example, the data used to assess student performance in a typical industrial design course are generally complex, multi-criteria, multi-variable, and frequently vague…

Industrial design has grown in Australia from a series of unnamed activities clustered about an emerging 19th century manufacturing industry into a recognised profession. This transformation largely occurred because of the emergence of specific design education and the support offered by professional design associations. Designers working for the…

Intellectual property includes not only copyright but also industrial property (IP), which consists of inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs and models, and designations of origin. In order to identify the importance of these competencies of non-lawyers, e.g. engineers, managers, in companies, an online survey was conducted in some…

The difficulty of Virtual Reality application in industrial design education and learning is VR engineers cannot comprehend what the important functions or elements are for students. In addition, a general-purpose VR usually confuses the students and provides neither good manipulation means nor useful toolkits. To solve these problems, the…

Purpose: Although the methods and approaches of sustainable design have been developing for more than 20 years, their application in design education and the design process is still under-examined. This study aims to investigate how to integrate sustainability into project-based undergraduate courses in industrial design education, where…

This article discusses teaching empathic research methodology as performance. The authors describe their collaboration in an activity to help undergraduate industrial design students learn empathy for others when designing products for use by diverse or underrepresented people. The authors propose that an industrial design curriculum would benefit…

Product design is the convergence point for engineering and design thinking and practices. Until recently, product design has been taught either as a component of mechanical engineering or as a subject within design schools but increasingly there is global recognition of the need for greater synergies between industrial design and engineering…

Sketching is widely used as a creative tool, playing a significant role in industrial design. Designers commonly use sketching to generate and evaluate ideas, leading to subsequent development of the most promising ideas. The current study examined the use of text in the idea generation sketching process among novices and experts. The…

School pupils in Taiwan spend most of their time in studying and having examinations, and consequently many of them decide what major to study in universities rather hastily. Industrial design (ID) programs in universities nowadays recruit students from general and vocational senior high schools through a variety of channels. As a consequence, ID…

Most university-level engineering studies produce technically skilled engineers. However, typically students face several difficulties when working in multidisciplinary teams when they initiate their industrial careers. In a globalised world, it becomes increasingly important that engineers are capable of collaborating across disciplinary…

In recent years, bio-inspired approach to design has gained considerable interest between designers, engineers and end-users. However, there are difficulties in introducing bio-inspiration concepts in the university curriculum in that they involve multi-disciplinary work, which can only possibly be successfully delivered by a team with integrated…

This paper applies the concept of ideology to the field of design education. Specifically, this study explores the potential impact of ideology on the interaction between tutors and students involved in the education of industrial design in Taiwan. Particular emphasis is placed upon the instruction of the core curriculum. The present investigation…

Industrial design and technology are lab-based disciplines with highly visual products, hands-on activities, and frequent interactions between faculty and students. As a result, the ways that online resources are used in these courses tend to be different from other subject areas with more lecture-oriented modes of learning. This article addresses…

The ability to access, evaluate and synthesise high-quality research material is the backbone of critical thinking in academic and professional contexts for Engineers and Industrial Designers. This is the premise upon which teaching and library staff developed Information Literacy (IL) components in Engineering & Industrial Design Practice--a…

Today's designers deal with a range of communication modes. These modes vary from hand gestures to sketches, physical models, and computer-generated images. It has been the norm to use these mediums throughout the process to visualize the intended design so that the potential users, designers, team members, and clients can understand the end…