caa a22 4500 445844558 CHVBK 20180317145354.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20111101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10798-010-9133-5 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10798-010-9133-5 Wormald Paul Division of Industrial Design, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore, 117566, Singapore, Singapore aut Positioning industrial design students to operate at the ‘fuzzy front end': investigating a new arena of university design education [Elektronische Daten] [Paul Wormald] This paper describes pedagogic research to instigate, support and understand a significant change in the education of undergraduate industrial design students. Design educators at Loughborough University, UK, have proposed that it will be critical for future industrial designers to learn new knowledge and abilities which will enable them to successfully operate at the ‘fuzzy front end' of new product development. This is an arena before a traditional design brief exists (i.e. ‘pre-brief'), and typically involves in-depth investigation of such issues as users, experiences and brand, followed by exploitation of the findings. Curriculum development and new teaching, evolved over five annual cycles of implementation, reflection, planning and new implementation, is described. A model of the activities and processes of this ‘pre-brief' arena is presented. Through structured investigation of the cycles of improvement and follow-up evaluation research, evidence gathered from stakeholders (students, educators, and industry) indicates that industrial design students can be taught to successfully operate at this fuzzy front end, and that this can be a highly effective strategy for students in their design project work. It also suggests that the students' enhanced abilities will be in demand following their graduation. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2010 Industrial design education nationallicence Fuzzy front end nationallicence New product development nationallicence Pedagogic research nationallicence International Journal of Technology and Design Education Springer Netherlands 21/4(2011-11-01), 425-447 0957-7572 21:4<425 2011 21 10798 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-010-9133-5 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-010-9133-5 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Wormald Paul Division of Industrial Design, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore, 117566, Singapore, Singapore aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- International Journal of Technology and Design Education Springer Netherlands 21/4(2011-11-01), 425-447 0957-7572 21:4<425 2011 21 10798 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer