Andrew Withell

• PhD
• Head of Department at Auckland University of Technology

The school of Art and Design at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand has recently developed new undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Product Design. The development is the result of intensive research and pedagogical develop- ment in response to emerging needs of industry and of graduates. The undergraduate programme consists of a...

Design Thinking is a human-centred methodology for innovation, which has evolved from the study of the unique ways in which designers 'think', and 'practice' (Bauer & Eagen, 2008). While there is emerging research into the learning and teaching of Design Thinking, it is often anecdotal, i.e. reflection rather than research-based, and there is gener...

Mobile social media can be used to augment physical learning spaces and bridge formal and informal learning contexts. This paper presents the ongoing implementation and impact of a mobile social media project, which aims to augment and enhance a Product Design programme underpinned by a Design Thinking methodology. The goal of the project is to enh...

Research paradigms constitute views that a researcher holds about (a) the nature of reality and what they can know about it (that is, ontology); (b) the potential influence of their existing ideas and values on what they want to know, how they try to get to know, and criteria they use to make judgments about knowledge (epistemology); and (c) approp...

This paper outlines the first stage of a design-based research (DBR) project exploring the literature and establishing a research methodology for the design of mixed reality (MR) environments to enhance informal learning in preparation for engagement in high-risk environments. The context of the project is mountain safety education for expert climb...

This paper outlines the first stage of a design-based research (DBR) project exploring the literature and establishing a research methodology for the design of mixed reality (MR) environments to enhance informal learning in preparation for engagement in high-risk environments. The context of the project is mountain safety education for expert climb...

While critical realist (CR) ontological and epistemological perspectives and research approaches are becoming more widely adopted by higher education researchers, the scope of research is relatively limited, and novice researchers in the area still struggle to create rich, in-depth, and critical accounts of these approaches ‘in action’. This articl...

In this chapter we outline five mobile social media projects in a variety of educational contexts to explore what works, and what doesn’t, providing examples of learning designs that utilise a maturing framework for creative pedagogies using mobile social media. The case studies are drawn from a variety of faculties and departments across one New Z...

This research involved the design, evaluation and enhancement of a design thinking curriculum for first-year, undergraduate product design and business students, using critical realist ontological perspectives, and an approach that integrated a critical realist theorising methodology within case studies that formed units of analysis in action resea...

Design Thinking has the potential to provide non-designers with contemporary skills and capabilities for researching, framing and creatively engaging with complex, and ill-defined problems. This paper presents an action research project that iteratively developed, enacted, analysed, and enhanced a learning and teaching environment aimed at developi...

Students sometimes appear to be ‘asleep’ and are often updating their Facebook status during seminars and lectures. We argue this is the equivalent of counting electric sheep. Student brainwave activity measured during traditional lectures has been shown to be similar to that while watching television and significantly lower than that exhibited dur...

Students sometimes appear to be 'asleep' and are often updating their Facebook status during seminars and lectures. We argue this is the equivalent of counting electric sheep. Student brainwave activity measured during traditional lectures has been shown to be similar to that while watching television and significantly lower than that exhibited dur...

This paper examines how mobile social media is being utilized to augment a traditional physical design studio education context as well as bridging situated student learning experiences beyond the confines of the design studio. Critical to the establishment of the project has been the creation and nurturing of a lecturer community of practice. The...

This paper will critically examine how an interdisciplinary commercial research project undertaken by staff in Product Design at AUT University can be leveraged to inform sustainable design curriculum and develop authentic learning opportunities to help give students a more realistic understanding of the complexities associated with ecological syst...

O’Reilly coined the term web 2.0 seven years ago (O'Reilly, 2005), yet in the past seven years we have seen minimal evidence of wide-spread impact of web 2.0 on traditional higher education pedagogy. Seven years on, we argue that today’s school-leaving students are entering higher education within an increasingly post web 2.0 society that is predom...

Mobile social media can be used to augment physical learning spaces and bridge formal and informal learning contexts. This paper presents the ongoing implementation and impact of a mobile social media project, which aims to augment and enhance a Product Design programme underpinned by a Design Thinking methodology. The goal of the project is to enh...

This research was initiated to develop low cost powders that could be used on 3D printers. The paper describes experiments that were undertaken with different compositions of clay-based powders, and different print saturation settings. An unexpected side effect of printing ceramic parts was the ability to control the part porosity by varying the po...

Mobile Internet connectivity has outgrown desktop and laptop Internet connectivity (MobileFuture, 2010). Mobile social media has become the successor to web 2.0 (Brown-Martin, 2010; Cheney, 2010; Jackson, 2012; Ryan, 2011). We will discuss examples of how higher education can harness the potential of mobile social media (McLoughlin & Lee, 2010), wi...

Design teams are expected to produce physical prototypes that demonstrate the working principles of their designs. These projects may involve multiple areas of technology, such as industrial design, electronics, mechanical engineering, software, and even marketing. The integration of physical, threedimensional prototypes into the newproduct develop...

This research project explores the feasibility of a Cradle to Cradle approach to sustainable product design in New Zealand. Relatively recently a framework for sustainable design was proposed by environmental chemist Michael Braungart and architect William McDonough who suggest that the current paradigm of “cradle to grave” product development is u...

The advent of additive manufacturing technologies presents a number of opportunities that have the potential to greatly benefit designers, and contribute to the sustainability of products. Additive manufacturing technologies have removed many of the manufacturing restrictions that may previously have compromised a designer’s ability to make the pro...

As globalisation gradually heads towards becoming a standard business model, more and more products are being developed by teams with members located in different countries and time zones. Managing such non-collocated teams presents a set of unusual challenges, particularly in the communication of ideas and design directions. Modern technologies, s...

Mechatronics represents a 'systems design' approach in which mechanical, electronics and software systems are tightly integrated and are seen to influence each other, and therefore have a design impact on each other and the system as a whole. It is therefore essential that they all be designed as a true 'system'. In essence, a mechatronics design a...

The consequences of the continually increasing impact of human development are confronting many people on a daily basis. Now more than ever there is a need to confront and challenge the way we live, one that is currently based around unsustainable production and consumption. Consequently, the design community has responded by recognising the potent...