Progress cards as a tool for supporting reflection, management and analysis of design studio processes

Abstract

This paper presents “progress cards” as a tool that supports design students in planning and reflecting on their design processes, while providing design studio coaches and design methods researchers with structured and in-depth insights into these processes. The progress card is a form that individual student designers or design teams typically fill at the end of each design studio workday. The form contains space for a visual and textual summary of the latest version of the designed experience and a summary of progress regarding the new knowledge generated in the design process. Introducing progress cards in our courses has been causing initial resistance from participating students due to perceived additional workload. However, over time, the format was improved and students developed routines of filling the progress cards, using them to document and reflect on their design processes, and starting to utilise the potential of the format to analyse and manage their own design process from a holistic perspective. The progress cards have also proven valuable in providing insights for the design coaches and design process researchers, both for assessing and guiding the work of students, as well as for comparison of design processes across multiple student teams. After three major revisions, tested by over 400 students, the progress card tool has reached maturity and can be confidently recommended for use in other design studios, while we are investigating further improvements to the tool and its applications for professional design situations.