Abstract

Traditionally in science and engineering, materials are characterized technically, through a series of studies aiming at probing and measuring the structure and properties of materials. In design, a holistic approach to materials is adopted which requires the characterization of materials for their experiential qualities, alongside the technical understanding. Despite the increasing attention to the notion of materials experience, design methodology lacks a systematic tool to support the experiential characterization of a material at hand. This paper presents the development of a toolkit to facilitate the experiential characterization of materials. The toolkit has been developed based on existing tools and approaches within the materials and design domain, and through two exploratory workshops conducted with design students and design professionals. The workshops provided useful insights to improve the toolkit’s final design, which is presented in the paper. While the toolkit needs further adjustments and validation, the discussion highlights how this approach can support design practice in conducting materials characterization studies in diverse situations.

Keywords

materials experience; characterization; materials; design tools

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Share

COinS
 
Jun 25th, 12:00 AM

Experiential Characterization of Materials: toward a toolkit

Traditionally in science and engineering, materials are characterized technically, through a series of studies aiming at probing and measuring the structure and properties of materials. In design, a holistic approach to materials is adopted which requires the characterization of materials for their experiential qualities, alongside the technical understanding. Despite the increasing attention to the notion of materials experience, design methodology lacks a systematic tool to support the experiential characterization of a material at hand. This paper presents the development of a toolkit to facilitate the experiential characterization of materials. The toolkit has been developed based on existing tools and approaches within the materials and design domain, and through two exploratory workshops conducted with design students and design professionals. The workshops provided useful insights to improve the toolkit’s final design, which is presented in the paper. While the toolkit needs further adjustments and validation, the discussion highlights how this approach can support design practice in conducting materials characterization studies in diverse situations.

 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.