Alexis Friesen

Knowing failure is part of the design process, this study aims to understand how seven product design students conceptualize it during specific design stages of their projects. Following surveys and interviews, student responses were evaluated using the double diamond framework, on what they deemed a failure or success within each stage. The stages from the double diamond framework were modified to combine research and synthesis, maintain ideation and prototyping, and add a presentation stage. The main findings were as follows: 1. Both overall and stage-specific success were driven by the connection to the problem statement. 2. Feedback was used overall and in each stage to determine whether an idea, prototype or presentation met the criteria for success or failure. 3. Within the stages there was interplay between factors which caused compounding effects on the relationship to the problem statement in that stage. For example, in the research and synthesis phase, the quality of the research done prior to conversations with users drove how meaningful those conversations were. The reverse was also true where how well students connected with users drove further research and information discovery. Both together impact the formation of the problem statement, but one isn’t more impactful than the other. 4. Students say failure is a spectrum but talk about it as a binary. Understanding how students define failure is important in design education. How students define failure for themselves can be used to inform rubrics, evaluations, and even how failure or success is talked about in the classroom.