Data and product development : the need for a data practice paradigm in design education : a project-based reflection on using MATLAB software for sensor data capture and analysis

This paper discusses how MATLAB software was integrated into the research and design process by capturing and visualising data to inform a 4th-year capstone undergraduate industrial design product development project. Examined within the project framework are perspectives on; data use for design projects from the literature, data collection, understanding project data, designer alternate skill set, using data to justify design direction, associated data capture technologies, data-driven changes of state for UIs (User Interface) and a proposal that designers need to have a data practice paradigm. As technology rapidly embeds into almost every aspect of society data is produced and captured at a diversity and scale previously unparalleled. Tools and systems to capture and assess such data simultaneously are being democratised, bringing new understandings and accessibility to systems for testing hypotheses more efficiently, either with sensor-based open-source hardware microprocessors or commercial data capturing systems. Designers developing smart products, smart system proposals, and IoT devices need to integrate these data capture and assessment tools into traditional product development and research processes. This is especially significant in projects where subtle technical innovation and application of new technologies, "technology epiphanies"[9], or natural user interfaces (NUI) are present. These themes are critical to designers at present; engineers, data scientists and computing scientists apply data analysis techniques to design problems previously in the product designer's training skillset. Having an applied understanding of such processes would permit designers to regain control over domains slipping into the grasp of allied product development disciplines.