DESIGN BOARDS AS AN ALIGNMENT TOOL FOR CROSS-DISCIPLINARITY IN ENGINEERING
Year: 2016
Editor: Erik Bohemia, Ahmed Kovacevic, Lyndon Buck, Christian Tollestrup, Kaare Eriksen, Nis Ovesen
Author: Tanderup Gade, Ulla
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Aalborg University, Denmark
Section: Form and Image
Page(s): 380-385
ISBN: 978-1-904670-62-9
Abstract
Design boards are communication and ideation tools used by designers in a design process to create
shared understanding and creativity either mutually or between designer and client. There are many
opinions about how to create Design boards the right way. Therefore, relevant literature will be
reviewed with focus on the different types of Design boards, their relation to each other, their content
and the basic guidelines of creating them. At the engineering education in industrial design at Aalborg University Design boards are often used
in the project work to align and establish creativity. Even though this is an engineering education and
many of the students eventually end up working within the engineering sector, there has been found no
examples of practical use of Design boards within this sector. Therefore, a pilot study has been set up
in an engineering company to test if Design boards can be used as alignment tools between different
departments. In the reviewed literature three fundamental ground structures of creating Design boards have been
discovered. Likewise, an illustration has been created to structure the Design boards in relation to each
other and in relation to a design process. In the pilot study it is indicated that there is a higher
agreement between the sale/administration department and the development department compared to
the before mentioned departments and the workshop. Furthermore, consideration on how Design
boards are being taught to the students at Industrial design at Aalborg University will be pointed out
and discussed throughout this paper.
Keywords: Mood boards, Design boards, Inspiration boards, visual communication, crossdisciplinarily, Alignment, Likert scale, product development, Design education.