Author Archive

Dave Franchino, president of Design Concepts, was the invited speaker at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Lindbergh Lecture Series, on Thursday, September 22nd.

The Lindbergh Lecture Series is organized and hosted by the Mechanical Engineering department. The Series features individuals from business, government and academia presenting their insights and experiences in a wide variety of industries and fields. The series is named after aviator Charles Lindbergh, who studied mechanical engineering at UW-Madison.

Dave spoke to a group of about 75 students interested in hearing more about the evolving role of mechanical engineers in product design. His presentation focused on the “renaissance engineer” as a multidisciplinary individual who drives product innovation.

It was a terrific discussion and a great opportunity for us to meet the next generation of designers that will be transforming ideas into remarkable products and services.

Design Concepts staff member Vivian Lin and Jarod Beukelman presented Design Minds on Decision Making as part of the Wright Design Lecture Series at Monona Terrace in Madison, WI. Below are the articles and broadcasts they referred to throughout their presentation.

We hope you enjoyed this exploration of decision making and how it impacts the products and services we design. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic – feel free to add a comment and join in the conversation on decision making!

BOOKS
The Art of Choosing | Sheena Iyengar
The Wisdom of Crowds | James Surowiecki
Blink | Malcolm Gladwell
Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? | P. E. Tetlock 2006
How We Decide | Jonah Lehrer 2009
On the “rapid, unconscious cognition” that underlies first impressions and snap decisions.

ARTICLES
Time pressure in risky decision-making: effect on risk defusing | O. Huber & U. Kunz
When Choice is Demotivating | Iyenger and Lepper 2000
The famous “Jam Study.” When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing? Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 995-1006. (2000)
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two | Miller
Psychological Review, Vol. 101, No. 2, 343-352 (1956)The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus TwoSome Limits on Our Capacity for Processing InformationGeorge A. MillerHarvard University
Incidental Haptic Sensations Influence Social Judgments and Decisions | Joshua M. Ackerman, Christopher C. Nocera and John A. Bargh
Science 25, June 2010 ABSTRACT Touch is both the first sense to develop and a critical means of information acquisition and environmental manipulation. Physical touch experiences may create an ontological scaffold for the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal conceptual and metaphorical knowledge, as well as a springboard for the application of this knowledge. In six experiments, holding heavy or light clipboards, solving rough or smooth puzzles, and touching hard or soft objects nonconsciously influenced impressions and decisions formed about unrelated people and situations. Among other effects, heavy objects made job candidates appear more important, rough objects made social interactions appear more difficult, and hard objects increased rigidity in negotiations. Basic tactile sensations are thus shown to influence higher social cognitive processing in dimension-specific and metaphor-specific ways.

AUDIO
Science Friday Archives: The Science of Decision-Making
MP3: overview of the science of decision making (2009).
Science Friday Archives: Looking Inside the Human Brain
MP3: fMRI studies of brain activity during decision making.
Science Friday Archives: A Soft Life, With Rough Spots
MP3: interview with John Bargh on priming effects.
Science Friday Archives: Wash Your Hands of That Decision
MP3: interview with Spike Lee on the effects of hand washing on choice justification behavior.
The science behind making decisions | PRI.ORG
MP3 file: interview with Jonah Lehrer, author of “How We Decide.”

VIDEO
Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code | Video on TED.com
TED video revealing bugs in our moral code that can lead to irrational decision-making behaviors.
Tom Wujec on 3 ways the brain creates meaning | Video on TED.com
TED video on the need for visual, interactive, and persistent communication methods for problem solving. It’s useful to think about how these principles can be applied to decision making.
Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions? | Video on TED.com
TED Video on irrational behavior.
Dan Gilbert on our mistaken expectations | Video on TED.com
TED video on why it can be hard for us to make rational decisions, focusing on our poor statistical intuitions.

BLOGS
Nudge blog • Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Blog offshoot of Thaler and Sunstein’s “Nudge.”
Priming The Customer | Neuromarketing
References Gladwell’s “Blink.” More generally, an interesting blog that pulls together latest findings from brain science and marketing.

TOOLS
The Ultimate Gadget Decision Flowchart | The Scordit Blog
Just for fun.

We’re delighted to have our most-recent white paper on Canon Communication’s QMED Web site. Putting Customers at the Center of Innovation: A prescription for successful medical device design is now available for you to download free of charge.

The paper helps readers identify the many customers (or users) who have a valuable perspective to share in the design of medical devices. From there, author of the paper and Design Concepts’ director of strategy & research Stefanie Norvaisas, introduces the reader to concrete product development efforts that demonstrate the value of customer-centered design.

Download the white paper Putting Customers at the Center of Innovation

The Design Concepts’ team of mechanical engineers continues their Wisconsin Off-Road Series (WORS) mountain and trail bike racing events. August 21st, 2011, Doug Rodenkirch earned a spot on the podium at the White Tail Ridge in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. The leg, which is dubbed by racing coordinators at the “Border Battle” and described as a “challenge for every level racer,” was no match for Doug! Congratulations to Doug and everyone who raced!

Learn more about WORS

Design Concepts’ staff members Stefanie Norvaisas, principal and director of strategy & research, and Lucas McCann, senior design strategist, will lead the workshop “More Meaningful Mapping: The How and Why of Diagramming Experiences,” at the 2011 Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC), Boulder CO, September 20, 2011.

The theme of EPIC 2011 is “Evolution/Revolution: Change and Ethnographic Work.”
The three-day conference will feature presentations, workshops and numerous collaborative opportunities. The conference brings together strategists and researchers from around the world to discuss the theory and practice of ethnography in industry.

Within their workshop, “More Meaningful Mapping,” Norvaisas and McCann will explore visual mapping tools that aid ethnographic researchers in understanding people and processes. The hands-on workshop challenges participants to view maps as more than descriptive tools and utilize experience maps as catalysts to create strategies and facilitate decisions. Maps of journeys, processes, and ecologies will be explored. Through concrete examples and rapid-fire team challenges, workshop attendees will learn why, when and how of experience mapping.