ID402 GRADUATION PROJECT
| Course Code: | 1250402 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): | 8 (4.00 - 8.00) |
| ECTS Credit: | 10.0 |
| Department: | Industrial Design |
| Language of Instruction: | English |
| Level of Study: | Undergraduate |
| Course Coordinator: | Assoc.Prof.Dr. FATMA KORKUT |
| Offered Semester: | Spring Semesters. |
Course Objectives
The course aims to enable students to:
- carry out a real-life design project taking advice from an external advisor located in Turkey, considering the facilities and resources of the advisor and the requirements of potential markets;
- conduct interdisciplinary work by collaborating with professionals from the marketing, production, and design disciplines;
- acquire and develop a self-initiative approach to defining a design problem/opportunity and preparing a strategy in order to formulate an appropriate design solution;
- acquire professional skills to generate contacts with relevant external advisors in order to pursue research and design;
- acquire professional skills and fluency to communicate ideas and design solutions with external advisors as well as course instructors;
- manage a design project with an intense exploratory approach to the issues governed by the design problem/opportunity, and to undertake research to develop awareness of the needs of users and industries;
- frame their project critically and intellectually within a ‘problem space’ and a ‘solution space’ and to reciprocate between the two spaces to reach creative and impactful final design proposals;
- document materials accumulated and generated throughout the design process to gain orderly working discipline;
- present their design proposal at several stages of development accompanied with a comprehensive documentation of the supporting research and design processes;
- follow a predetermined timetable for the project in a professional and punctual manner.
Course Content
Projects carried out with advice from external stakeholders such as industry, design consultancies, non-governmental organizations, public sector bodies and individual experts. Analysing and responding to real-life design problems and opportunities with a critical and professional approach.
Course Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the course, each student will have:
- determined his/her areas of professional interest, and proposed project statements suitable to the final year design studio;
- gained experience in managing and working on a large-scale design project with an external advisor;
- gained experience in interdisciplinary collaboration involving marketing, production, and design disciplines;
- finalised a project statement in accordance with researched user needs and project-relevant constraints;
- employed creativity exercises (e.g. scenario building, brain storming, matrices, etc.) to develop new design concepts;
- provided regular feedback to course instructors on the communications held with his/her external advisor;
- prepared a comprehensive project development portfolio that demonstrates exploration of existing design solutions, potential user groups, design strategies, design criteria, related production technologies, and iterated design solutions;
- provided evidence of progress in his/her design process through sketches, mock-ups and digital models during regular studio critiques and juries/presentations;
- presented a final design proposal (comprising a concept, usage scenarios, product/UI features and technical details) in a professional manner using appropriate media (e.g. digital models, visualizations, technical drawings, physical appearance or working model, working UI, prototype, etc.), to a standard suitable for public exhibition.
Program Outcomes Matrix
| Level of Contribution | |||||
| # | Program Outcomes | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 | Creative problem definition, developing solution-oriented ideas, critical thinking and creating solution proposals by synthesizing the knowledge gained | ✔ | |||
| 2 | Planning, managing and conducting the design process | ✔ | |||
| 3 | Planning and carrying out design-oriented research and transferring the results to the design process | ✔ | |||
| 4 | Thinking with basic design and visual organization elements and principles and being able to apply ideas in two and three dimensions | ✔ | |||
| 5 | Identifying the user's needs, predicting their expectations and integrating them into the design process | ✔ | |||
| 6 | Ability to work individually and to conduct team-work | ✔ | |||
| 7 | Understanding the relationship of the Industrial Design field with different disciplines and being able to carry out interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies | ✔ | |||
| 8 | Ability to communicate in international mediums using a foreign language and follow the professional agenda | ✔ | |||
| 9 | Developing an independent, lifelong learning approach by being aware of the ever-changing contexts of design | ✔ | |||
| 10 | Being aware of the socio-cultural, socio-economic and environmental context in design and considering the benefit of society and the environment | ✔ | |||
| 11 | Ability to interpret the issues related to art and culture affecting the historical development of industrial design on the local and global scale | ✔ | |||
| 12 | Having knowledge about business models, ethical principles, and laws and regulations that should be followed in professional practice | ✔ | |||
| 13 | Knowing the materials and production technology within the scope of Industrial Design and using them in the design process | ✔ | |||
| 14 | Having command of technological developments in the field of industrial design, being able to use the necessary technological tools | ✔ | |||
| 15 | Being able to present design ideas and solutions with relevant communication tools and methods | ✔ | |||
0: No Contribution 1: Little Contribution 2: Partial Contribution 3: Full Contribution