Understanding the cognitive process - A protocol study

Abstract

Due to the rich and unstructured characteristic of design process and its activities, qualitative research method has been preferred in design field as a tool to understand the cognitive process. Although the understanding of the cognitive process has been regarded as one of the main research topic in the international design research, there are few studies related to this topic in Korean design society. And also the utilization of qualitative research method was rare. In this regard, this research aims to introduce a protocol study which investigates the cognitive process of designers, and discuss about its findings. Especially in its experimental design, this study tried to overcome the previous researches’ limitation such as few participants with diverse design background. In addition, a graphical representation of encoded protocol – a cognitive map - was developed and devised. Result based on the analysis of cognitive maps showed the existence of different cognitive styles in the idea generation process.