A Dissertation Exploring the Issues Surrounding the Rapid Development of Information Appliances by Designers

<p> </p> <p>This PhD by published works dissertation includes seven peer reviewed</p> <p>publications. The author uses selected papers to demonstrate the novelty</p> <p>of the work, summarising papers' findings and illustrating as appropriate.</p> <p>The Introduction explains the way in which the work has developed, its</p> <p>focus and the raison d'etre for the order in which the papers are</p> <p>presented.</p> <p>Contribution to New Knowledge briefly summarises the contribution of</p> <p>the outputs individually and collectively to the author's chosen field.</p> <p>The Background chapter explains the work's origins, how the author</p> <p>became interested in the field, how he developed his initial interests into</p> <p>a research topic and the timescale of events. Two papers; The Virtual</p> <p>Environment in Design Projects (1999) and Designing a Learning</p> <p>Environment for Three Dimensional Thinkers (2000) are used as</p> <p>reference material.</p> <p>In the Current Practice and Application chapter the work of other</p> <p>researchers relevant to the field of enquiry and the current practices of</p> <p>the design and manufacturing industry are discussed. References to</p> <p>papers included in this submission are cited as necessary.</p> <p>The IE System; Origins and First Workable Manifestations chapter</p> <p>describes how the various elements of the system came together to form</p> <p>one coherent methodology. The chapter details how the work progressed</p> <p>from early manifestations and describes the development of the IE2 and</p> <p>IE3.</p> <p>The Trials and Empirical Performance Measurement chapter uses material</p> <p>from two papers: The Traditional Design Process Versus a New Design</p> <p>Methodology: A Comparative Case Study of a Rapidly Designed</p> <p>Information Appliance and Rapid Development of Tangible Interactive</p> <p>Appliances: Achieving the Fidelity / Time Balance. Through reference to</p> <p>these papers the author summarises the results of the various trials</p> <p>described in detail within them.</p> <p>The dissertation concludes by describing the latest and future work with</p> <p>colleagues at Lancaster University and Sony-Ericsson. The IE4, IE5 and</p> <p>IE6 are described and the plans for the future research are discussed.</p>