Design Integrations: Research and Collaboration by Keiichi Sato
and Sharon Poggenpohl, eds. Intellect Books/University of Chicago, 2009., September, 2009

Includes chapter by Judith Gregory, "A Complex Model for International and Inter-Cultural Collaboration in Health Information Systems Design, and a chapter by Peter Storkerson (ID PhD 2000). purchase from Amazon.

The Power of Abstraction by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, August, 2009

In the innovator’s tool box, abstraction is one of the most powerful tools. For the creative mind, it offers a way to step away from the mundane to find fresh ways to conceptualize

Bottom-up, Top-down by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, www.bpmi.org, June, 2009

A subtle but interesting argument persists about the overall nature of the innovation process: is it a top-down process in which a master concept is discovered or created and then applied to the details of a project? Or is it a bottom-up process in which many threads arefollowed to build ideas toward a master concept?

The practice of design: design in process by Vijay Kumar
Journal of Business Strategy, May, 2009

A special issue of the Journal of Business Strategy, edited by Vijay Kumar, brings together experts from many fields to discuss how design innovation can be successfully practiced through adopting formalized design processes. The papers come from innovators in fields as diverse as healthcare, digital products, software, telecommunications, space planning, web services, city planning, and education.

The Systems Viewpoint by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, February, 2009

Advanced planning approached from a systems viewpoint treats projects from the outset as systems problems. Thus predisposed, it is natural to see the problem as hierarchical and to seek first the appropriate system level to address. Steps then progress logically to establishing required functionality, building system solutions, incorporating a full range of component types, paying attention to relationships among them, and providing means for adaptive behavior.

90 Questions + Answers with 13 Design Thinkers by Vince LaConte
IIT Institute of Design self-published, December, 2008

A collection of interviews with design and innovation thought-leaders, including Bill Buxton, Valerie Casey, Rob Forbes, Clement Mok and several more. 64 pages, fully illustrated. Download an excerpt here; to purchase a full copy for $19.95 plus shipping, visit IIT's secure payment site.

Organizing for Innovation by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, October, 2008

This paper presents an "Interaction Measure" method of organizing information in a non-hierachical way, which is more conducive to creative thinking and innovation planning.

Using the Tools of Structure by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, June, 2008

Planning and design problems are considerably more complex than most, even seemingly "simple" ones. The solution is to find or impose structure so that
complex problems can be rationally addressed piecemeal.

Capturing Ideas by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, May, 2008

Ideas, of themselves, are not necessarily hard to come by. Good ideas, on the other hand, are not so common. In fact, they are rare enough that whole businesses have grown up around increasing innovative productivity. From Alex Osborn’s "brainstorming" in the advertising world of the 1930’s to more modern Internet idea generating systems, the belief that idea production can be stimulated has resulted in serious efforts to generate and capture good ideas.

Insight and Ideas by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, February, 2008

The pursuit if insight is critical to innovation. Design Factors are documents used in Structured Planning to capture insights and tie them to ideas for their use.

Covering User Needs by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, November, 2007

One problem of analysis in system planning is the problem of coverage: enumerating what the system must do to meet the needs and expectations of its users. A useful framework for doing this is a Function Structure.

Structured Planning: Advanced Planning for Business, Institutions and Government by Charles Owen
IIT Institute of Design, September, 2007

In 355 liberally illustrated pages, this book collects materials on methods for design and planning long under development at the Institute of Design, including examples from projects ranging from product and systems design to design for services in both private and public sectors.

Goals and Definition by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, August, 2007

Issue-based project definition in Structured Planning uses Defining Statements to study issues in-depth prior to design. Of special note is the use of three kinds of goal statement: Constraints, which must be achieved; Objectives which should be attempted; and Directives which ought to be achieved where appropriate.

Design Relationships: Integrating User Information into Product Development by
Adriano Galvao, Ph.D. VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller, August, 2007

Innovation fails and resources are lost when products do not match user-interaction requirements. This book examines how to design user-product relationships into the core of a product's architecture, based on the information from product functions and user studies. Introduced is a Function-Task- Interaction methodology that identifies, represents and quantifies these relationships, and is supported by three case studies and an information system.

Educating Designers for Broad Roles in Organizations by Faculty
Design Management Review, August, 2007

Posits a five-part framework for applying design expertise across the spectrum of issues related to managing a business.

Launching the Dual Degree: Creating Business-Savvy Designers by Jeremy Alexis
and Zia Hassan. Design Management Review, August, 2007

The authors elaborate on how combining masters programs in design and business generates unique leadership and problem-solving abilities.

International Design Institutes by Charles Owen
Institute of Design white paper, June, 2007

The problems of the 21st century are difficult and immediate. Design, as a field, has particular strengths that will be essential. To exploit them fully, their value must be communicated and their research extended. Erected for this purpose in regionally important major cities, international design institutes will be a significant force in a movement of research, education and communication.

Daily Life, Not Markets: Customer-Centered Design by Vijay Kumar,Patrick Whitney
Journal of Business Strategy 28, no. 4, pp. 46-58, June, 2007

Most so-called customer-centered strategies normally fall short because marketing and development teams miss what is fundamentally important to their customers.

Reforming the Development Process by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, May, 2007

A spinoff of the extended development process makes feasible a parallel process for producing and delivering concepts at a rate appropriate for the needs of a highly competitive market.

Education for Design, Design for Education by Charles Owen
American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, April, 2007

A look at the design field in relation to other fields of higher education, how and why students choose design, and the kinds of problems design prepares students to solve.

First Things First by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, February, 2007

In a truly competitive global environment, companies will have to routinely obsolete their own products with new concepts; to do this it will be necessary to reform the development process.

Design Thinking: Notes on its Nature and Use by Charles Owen
Design Research Quarterly vol 2, no 1 (Design Research Society), January, 2007

Design thinking, as a complement to science thinking, embodies a wide range of creative characteristics as well as a number of other special qualities of distinct value to decision makers.

Another Look at Quality by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, December, 2006

Looks at quality through the lens of design innovation, using a Quality Pyramid to portray how quality can be built to a level of Product Integrity.

Evaluation of Complex Systems by Charles Owen
Design Studies vol 27, no 6 , November, 2006

Introduces a new process for evaluating systems, representing them as a hierarchy of functions or policies, to be scored against criteria on a bidirectional scale.

Design Thinking: Driving Innovation by Charles Owen
Business Process Management Institute, September, 2006

Far more than principles, rules and procedures, innovation is most effective when imbued with attitudes and ways of thinking that have evolved over generations within the design community.

Incorporating Affordances into Product Architecture: Methodology and Case Study by Keiichi Sato
and Adriano Galvao. ASME 2006 International Design Engineering Technical Conference & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Philadelphia, September, 2006

Reviews the Function-Task-Interaction methodology and tools, which link product functions to users' tasks and incorporate the concept of affordances in product architecture development.

Using Design to Create Fiercely Loyal Customers by Jeremy Alexis
Rotman Magazine, September, 2006

Cultivating fiercely loyal customers requires ambition and risk-taking, but will ultimately provide your company with valuable and sustainable relationships.

Describing Multiple Aspects of Use Situation: Application of Design Information Framework (DIF) to Scenario Development by Keiichi Sato
and Youn-Kyung Lim. Design Studies, Vol.27-1, 57-76, November, 2005

Introduces the Design Information Framework (DIF) as a mechanism to accommodate multiple viewpoints and to represent them for effective management of design information, and addresses the incorporation of this framework in a structured form of scenario generation.

Needs Clusters: A research strategy for accelerating user-centered design innovation by Jeremy Alexis
Institute of Design white paper, November, 2005

Examines a design research strategy that creates an intersection between customer requirements and customer behavioral modes.

Design Thinking: What It Is, Why It Is Different, Where It Has New Value by Charles Owen
Proceedings of the International Conference on Design Research and Education for the Future, South Korea, October, 2005

Examines the nature of design thinking as it differs from other ways of thinking, and introduces a model for comparing fields and a number of characteristics of creative individuals.

Affordances In Product Architecture: Linking Technical Functions And User Tasks by Keiichi Sato
and Adriano Galvao. ASME Conference on Design Theory and Methodology, Long Beach, September, 2005

Discusses the concept of affordances as an instrument useful for understanding the relationships between technical functions and user tasks. Winner of the conference's Best Paper Award.

DIF Knowledge Management System: Bridging Viewpoints for Interactive System Design by Keiichi Sato
and Yong Chen, Deborah Cracchiolo, Xiaoshan He, Eui-Chul Jung, Tom MacTavish. Proceedings of the 11th Human Computer Interaction International, Las Vegas, July, 2005

Reports the development of the DIF Knowledge Management System that provides a common information platform and toolkit for interdisciplinary collaboration in human-centered interactive system development.

A Framework for Context-Sensitive Visualization for User-Centered Interactive Systems by Keiichi Sato
and Eui-Chul Jung. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on User Modeling, pp423-427, July, 2005

Proposes an adaptive mechanism of information visualization that responds to context changes in knowledge-intensive work.

Perspectives on Design and Strategy by Patrick Whitney
and Brandon Schauer. Interviews from the 2005 ID Strategy Conference, May, 2005

Download excerpt only; to order a full copy for $19.95, please contact us at .

Societal Responsibilities: Growing the Role of Design by Charles Owen
Proceedings of the International Conference on Planning and Design, Tainan, Taiwan, May, 2005

Discusses how the design profession can act to provide policy makers with proactive, constructive options for addressing urgent global issues.

Awards and Competitions: What They Can Do and How They Can Do It by Charles Owen
Institute of Design white paper, February, 2005

Raises some of the problems that ought to be on the minds of awards organizers and jurors, for the good of the design profession and the wider public.

Designing for the Base of the Pyramid by Patrick Whitney
and Anjali Kelkar. Design Management Journal vol. 15 no. 4: 41-47, December, 2004

Explores contributions design can make to businesses in developing countries, specifically businesses in the slums of India.

Responsible Design: Achieving Living Excellence: Implications, Warnings and a Call to Action by Charles Owen
Proceedings of eDesign2004: International Conference on Environmental Design for Living Excellence, Selangor, Malaysia, December, 2004

Discusses how the design profession can act to provide policy makers with proactive, constructive options for addressing urgent global issues.

Innovation Planning Toolkit by Vijay Kumar
Proceedings of the FutureGround Design Research Society International Conference, Melbourne, November, 2004

This research models a disciplined innovation planning process that could be commonly understood by team members from various specialty areas, and models an innovation planning toolkit for team collaboration.

Leveraging Design's Core Competencies by Faculty
Design Management Review, vol. 15, no. 3, September, 2004

Points out aspects of designing that add value to the spectrum of activities within the business enterprise.

Context-Sensitive Approach for Interactive Systems Design: Modular Scenario-based Methods for Context Representation by Keiichi Sato
Journal of Physiological Anthropology and Applied Human Sciences 23: 277-281, September, 2004

Introduces a conceptual framwork for defining, representing and incorporating contexts as core information for interactive systems design.

What Is Design? Some Questions and Answers by Charles Owen
Institute of Design white paper, September, 2004

The word "design" is used and abused with great indifference to meaning. What does it mean to designers, educators, and in particular to the Institute of Design?

Human-Centered System Architecture: A Framework For Interpreting And Applying User Needs by Keiichi Sato
and Adriano Galvao. ASME Conference on Design Theory and Methodology, Salt Lake City, September, 2004

Introduces a user-centered approach for interpreting user needs into actionable knowledge for product design.

User Insights Tool: a sharable database for user research by Vijay Kumar
Institute of Design white paper, January, 2004

A sharable database tool being developed at the Institute of Design for doing faster and deeper activity-centered research.

Models of Dissertation Research in Design by Keiichi Sato
Proceedings of the 3rd Doctoral Education in Design Symposium, Tsukuba, Japan, October, 2003

This paper is a meta-level reflection of actual experience in developing and guiding doctoral research and dissertation in design. Two models for framing approaches to research are shown and discussed.

A Framework for Understanding Contexts in Interactive Systems Design by Keiichi Sato
Eric Swanson and Adriano Galvao. Proceedings of the 7th World Multi-conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, October, 2003

This research proposes a framework for managing context, the Context-Influence Framework. The Context-Influence Framework defines such a system as having multiple contexts, each associated with a particular combination of users and use of the system. These combinations are in turn affected by contextual Influences. Influences provide a means of standardizing and sharing contextual information within a team.

Encoding Scenarios with Design Information Framework for the Generation of Multi-Aspect Models for System Implementation by Keiichi Sato
and Youn-Kyung Lim. Proceedings of the 7th World Multi-conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, July, 2003

By introducing the Design Information Framework (DIF) as a unified information platform, this research enables sharing and interpretation of multiple aspects from different disciplines.

Scenarios for Usability Evaluation: Using Design Information Framework and a Task Analysis Approach by Keiichi Sato
and Youn-Kyung Lim. Proceedings of the International Congress of Ergonomic Associations, April, 2003

This research developed a mechanism for manipulating scenarios of use for usability evaluation purposes.

Faster, Cheaper, Deeper User Research by Patrick Whitney,Vijay Kumar
Design Management Journal, April, 2003

IIT's Institute of Design and Tsinghua Univeresity's Academy of Art and Design in Beijing are creating a set of 'activity-focused' research methodologies and a prototype database of research results. The goals are to identify unfulfilled culturally centered design opportunities and to increase the speed and success of innovating in new geographic regions.

Context-Sensitive Interactive Systems Design: A Framework for Representation of Contexts by Keiichi Sato
Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 3: Human-Centered Computing (2003): 1323-1327, March, 2003

This research attempts to introduce a representation framework for contextual information critical for developing a methodological foundation for user-centered design practice.

Aspect Model-Based Methods for Scenario and Prototype Developemnt by Keiichi Sato
and Youn-Kyung Lim. Prototype Developemnt." Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 2: Human-Computer Interaction, February, 2003

This paper presents a new prototyping specification mechanism based on the Design Information Framework.

Structured Planning by Charles Owen
Institute of Design white paper, December, 2001

Provides a general overview of Structured Planning using a 2001 project for the National Center for State Courts, called Access to Justice: Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants.

Object-Mediated User Knowledge Elicitation Method by Keiichi Sato
and Sakol Teeravarunyou. Proceedings of the 5th Asian International Design Research Conference. Seoul, Korea, October, 2001

Looks at the effectiveness of using the proposed Object-Mediated User Knowledge Elicitation (OMUKE) method in relation to other methods for capturing user knowledge in a way that helps design teams develop clear insights.

User Process Based Product Architecture by Keiichi Sato
and Sakol Teeravarunyou. Proceedings of the World Congress on Mass Customization and Personalization. Hong Kong, October, 2001

User knowledge and User Process Based Architecture is a proposed framework and method that brings the right product to the right users. It is one mechanism to obtain knowledge regarding the customization needs of users, which in turn generates further knowledge for designing the product.

Creating A New Product Paradigm Between Media Space and Physical Space. by Keiichi Sato
Proceedings of the International Council of Socieities of Industrial Design. Seoul, Korea, October, 2001

Three emerging issues are discussed: 1) new product paradigms emerging between physical space and media space, 2) incorporation of computing and networking functions into physical products to enable seamless infrastructures, and 3) positioning users as strategic partners and resources in product and business development.

Development of Design Information Framework for Interactive Systems Design by Keiichi Sato
and Youn-Kyung Lim. Proceedings of the 5th Asian International Symposium on Design Science. Seoul, Korea, October, 2001

Focuses on introducing a common information platform, the Design Information Framework (DIF), to support consistency and accessibility of design information across multiple disciplines, departments and platforms, and through different phases of the design process.

Evolutionary Structured Planning by Charles Owen
and Charles Bezerra. Artificial Intelligence in Design. Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, December, 2000

With origins in Morphological Analysis and Structured Planning, the Evolutionary Structured Planning method introduces genetic algorithms as a means for dealing with compound solution concepts in large combinatorial solution spaces. It can be applied to virtually any design problem at the conceptual level.

Physical Interaction and Multi-Aspect Representation for Information Intensive Environments by Keiichi Sato
and Youn-Kyung Lim. Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communications. Osaka, Japan, September, 2000

Embedded technology and networking allow for the integration of physical objects with information infrastructure and augmentation of the physical environment with information and computing functions. This opens a new problem in interactive systems design: how to control remotely connected objects, interact with intelligent environments, and combine physical and media entities.

Managing Complexity in Design: the role of computer-supported methods by Charles Owen
and Charles Bezerra. CAPE99 - The 15th International Conference on Computer-Aided Production Engineering, June, 1999

Considers computer-supported design and planning methods in context and presents an evolving conceptual planning process, Structured Planning, as an example of how methods can reveal structure among information elements previously not perceived as related, so that emerging concepts can be developed more innovatively, holistically and systematically.

Design, Advanced Planning and Product Development by Charles Owen
3rd Congresso Brasileiro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Design, Rio de Janeiro, October, 1998

Companies must offer better products now, and introduce them frequently to stay in business. Growing numbers of people have greater expectations for themselves and their environments. Fundamental to success in this world are better ways to find, organize and use the information critical to advanced planning and design -- of artifacts, systems, services and institutions. Structured Planning is a computer-supported set of tools for information-age design planning.

Design Research: Building the Knowledge Base by Charles Owen
Design Studies 19, No. 1: 9-20, January, 1998

Research in design has a long but not very robust history, but change is afoot, pushing us into new economic relationships, and design is recognized as a critical factor for business success. The obvious inference is that it behooves countries, industries and companies to develop high-quality designers and equip them with high-quality tools: theory, methods and processes. Thus, design research.

Reflections on Design: Process for Change by Charles Owen
Tenjin Barca Festival, Osaka, Japan, July, 1993

A reflection on how designers do what we do.

A Critical Role for Design Technology by Charles Owen
Design Management Journal, Spring 1993: 10-18, April, 1993

New rules are taking form for how the games of business will be played. There is little question design will play a major role in the kind of economic world on the horizon. The question is, what role will that be?

Context for Creativity by Charles Owen
Design Studies 13, No. 3: 216-228, January, 1992

A better way to think about creativity and design is to think about how to place the different styles of lateral and vertical thinking together in a process that best takes advantage of both at appropriate times.

Product Integrity by Design by Charles Owen
Proceedings of the Deuxiemes Rencontres Internationales du Design et de Industrie, 135-140. Toulon, France, September, 1991

Product integrity, by definition, involves all aspects of a product's existence -- from production to retirement -- and touches all who come in contact with the product, from producer to user, planner to servicer. What actually takes place at each contact plays an important role in determining product integrity.

Design Education And Research For The 21st Century by Charles Owen
Proceedings of the First International Design Forum, 34-45, Singapore, October, 1988

Advances in design theory and technology are making it possible for designers to undertake greater responsibility for the development of new products and systems. Fundamental changes must take place in the nature of design education to take advantage of these possibilities.