Towards an Orchestration of Forecasting Methods to Devise Strategies for Design” – Also Comes from a Place of Personal Motivation
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TOWARDS AN ORCHESTRATION OF FORECASTING METHODS TO DEVISE STRATEGIES FOR DESIGN by Priyanka Sharma APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ___________________________________________ Dr. Maximilian Schich, Chair ___________________________________________ Dr. Kimberly Knight ___________________________________________ Dr. Matt Brown ___________________________________________ Dr. Frank Dufour Copyright 2018 Priyanka Sharma All Rights Reserved TOWARDS AN ORCHESTRATION OF FORECASTING METHODS TO DEVISE STRATEGIES FOR DESIGN by PRIYANKA SHARMA, B.Des, MA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS August 2018 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am greatly appreciative of the many individuals who provided support and encouragement for my work through the process of writing this dissertation. Above all, I would like to thank my doctoral committee for their continuous guidance, critical feedback, and timely advice in the past few years. I am especially indebted to my advisor Dr. Maximilian Schich, whose invaluable insight, unique perspective, persistence for perseverance provided me with the inspiration and motivation to work towards this dissertation. I thank Dr. Dufour for being the relentless source of optimism and his faith in my efforts. His support and guidance made me hopeful of being capable of ingenuity and left me intellectually stimulated. I express my sincere gratitude toward Dr. Kim Knight for her trust in me and enabling me to continue this journey. I am indebted to Dr. Matthew Brown, who during the entire course of writing this dissertation helped me immensely with the structural aspects of this dissertation and guided me towards practical and critical milestones in my research. Dr. Schich’s multidisciplinary approach in the field of art, architecture and cultural history continues to influence my way of thinking and questioning the status quo. His work integrating visual hermeneutics with methods of computation, natural science, and information design methods provided most pertinent perspective on how insights into the past may prove to be crucial in postulating the future. Dr. Dufour’s expertise regarding the epistemology of creating novel and timely methodological solutions helped me iterate and re-iterate my research process. My heartfelt appreciation goes to Dr. Matt Brown, whose expert guidance in understanding the nuances of interpretative methods through the lens of cognition and interaction was instrumental iv in enabling me to craft the structure of solution through my research. I feel extremely fortunate to have Dr. Kim Knight as a member of my committee. Her trust and generosity allowed me to keep working towards my goal and I am deeply grateful to her. There have been many others with whom I interacted, worked, learned from and have guided me through the process with their friendship, knowledge, and wisdom. August 2018 v TOWARDS AN ORCHESTRATION OF FORECASTING METHODS TO DEVISE STRATEGIES FOR DESIGN Priyanka Sharma, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2018 ACT Supervising Professor: Dr. Maximilian Schich Social, technological, political and environmental paradigms are changing globally at a pace never seen before, giving way to rapid changes in social patterns, culture, and human behavior. Designers and creative industries are constantly trying to develop solutions, which are relevant for the end user and in tune with the current times. Since design itself, is a process of synthesis it cannot be carried out in seclusion. It needs to take into account changes happening in the surroundings and changing consumer preferences. Designing solutions without considering the overarching changes underway and their future impact run the risk of losing large monetary investments going into the process. Hence, it becomes extremely important that the design process is informed by relevant forecasts to address the changes emerging in the overall landscape of society and lifestyle. Forecasters have grappled with ambiguity when devising forecasts for the design of consumer goods, durables, services and other lifestyle products. Multiple factors and distinct needs are involved with design projects. With the plethora of forecasting research methods available, selecting the right forecasting strategy is crucial to designing meaningful and successful vi products. Forecasting literature provides multiple ways for categorizing forecasting methods, including qualitative, quantitative, normative, exploratory methods. Yet, any classification into such categories would focus on the methods rather than target the need and context for forecasting. This dissertation emphasizes the importance of the strategic forecasting approach to holistically inform the design processes. In particular, this dissertation, aims to facilitate a modular orchestration of methods from the ecology of forecasting approaches through a ‘Composite Framework of Forecasting Methods and Applications’. The composite forecasting framework illustrated in this dissertation gleans from three distinct contexts or needs (predict, prefer, and paradigm-shift) for forecasting and utilizes operational caveats (availability of data, lead time, nature of forecast and forecasting range) to guide the selection of forecasting methods. The strategic selection of methods thus obtained enables achieving relevant and accurate future insights, constructively informing design processes geared towards specific forecasting needs and contexts. Applying the composite forecasting framework to real world scenarios opens future conversations for an interdisciplinary perspective on design processes and a richer amalgamation of forecasting techniques. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................................iv ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................vi LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................ix CHAPTER1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 FORECASTING METHODS: AN ANALYSIS.....................................................14 A. METHODS OF OBSERVATION.....................................................................................14 Environmental Scanning....................................................................................................23 Nystrom’s Framework.......................................................................................................29 Design Trends Analysis.....................................................................................................36 B. METHODS OF ESTIMATION .......................................................................................44 Statistical Modeling..........................................................................................................44 Cross Impact Analysis......................................................................................................62 Decision Analysis.............................................................................................................68 Machine Learning Methods..............................................................................................73 Morphological Analysis...................................................................................................81 C. METHODS OF INTERVENTION..................................................................................89 Delphi...............................................................................................................................89 Ethnography.....................................................................................................................94 Design Thinking.............................................................................................................107 Other Methods................................................................................................................118 CHAPTER 3 CASE STUDIES: AN EVALUATION...............................................................123 CHAPTER 4 FORECASTING NEEDS AND ATTRIBUTES.................................................145 CHAPTER 5 APPLYING THE COMPOSITE FORECASTING FRAMEWORK..................181 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................201 REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................207 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH......................................................................................................230 CURRICULUM VITAE.............................................................................................................231 viii LIST OF FIGURES 1.1: Tracking the frequency of ‘trends’ and ‘trend forecasting’ from 1800 to 2000 in English books, using the Google Ngram Viewer…………………………………………………………..6 1.1A: The idea of “trend” began gaining prominence around mid 19th century…………………..6 1.1B: The term “trend forecasting” does not show much prominence as compared to the general idea of “trends” …………………………………………………………………………..6 1.1C: When viewed on Ngram viewer by itself “trend