Abstract
User requirements and engineering specifications represent important criteria that engineering designers use to define their design problems and evaluate the suitability of their solution concepts. Novice designers frequently develop user requirements and engineering specifications as part of curricular design projects; however, few studies have explored how novice designers justify the user requirements and engineering specifications that they develop. This preliminary study analyzed the design reports of capstone design teams to determine how novice designer participants justified their user requirements and engineering specifications. Teams frequently used “Sponsor interactions” and “Perceptions of user needs” as justifications for user requirements but gathered limited data directly from users. As such, the user requirements developed by teams may have been based on team assumptions rather than actual user needs. Teams frequently used “Sponsor interactions,” “Technical research,” and “Prior work” as justifications for engineering specifications. However, teams also developed several engineering specifications without clear justifications. Our findings suggest that as novice designers develop their design skills, they may need scaffolding and support tools to guide the development of user requirements and engineering specifications that accurately reflect user needs.
