The wayfinding application of AEIOU approach design workshop is an operationalism
oriented design methodology in which design college students worked together to find the
real world wayfinding problems and then analyze, represent, test, and finally design a
problem solving product or service. The AEIOU approach is articulated to A (activity), E
(environment), I (individual), O (objects), and U (understanding). It was designed based on
the Situation-Framework-Solution Mode that consisted with Situation-problem (analysis),
Framework-lenses (evaluation), and Solution-prototype (synthesis), the evidence-based
design process. The most important concept to be learned is the attitude of “empathy” and
“reflection-in-action”.
The workshop process was operated based on the following steps: (1) Define situationproblem;
(2)
Select
framework
to
analyze;
(3)
Represent
Lynch’s
framework;
(4)
Use
Lynch’s
analysis
method;
(5)
Analyze
representation; (6) Evaluate the collected and
represented data; (7) Develop representations of the evaluation (seeing & imaging
drawings ); (8) Synthesize the requirements or opportunities into beta solution method; (9)
Prototype imagining drawings; (10) Evaluate the solutions-synthesis against the problem
situation and test; (11) Repeat (iterate) steps 1-10 until the cost-benefit is negative.
The conclusions and feedbacks generated from the workshop were three pedagogical
evaluation contents: (1) The website sharing and information presentation are helpful to
the workshop pedagogical method. (2) Most of the students felt “freedom but serious” in
the overall process control. With the satisfaction feedback, the students revealed high
positive attitude about their final design works and their work performance. (3) The most
impressive part of the workshop process was “prototype testing”. According to the
opinions of students, most of them were first time to make prototype testing with the real
users.
DRS 2012 Bangkok
