The coding system

Most analogy theories have been developed primary under linguistic paradigms. There is no specific analogical theory to designing. The author applies some important theories originated from other fields to analyze the rough data.

The author integrates two kinds of theories into one coding scheme (TABLE 4.1.3 b) to analyze the major visual data and minor verbal data. The author focuses on analogical thinking process and the types of analogical ideas. The analogical thinking in design field is a complicated process that designers may transfer several analogical ideas from sources to target, but these ideas do not occur in independent analogical thinking process. Most of them are happened in the same process but in different stage probably. The author tries to investigate the relationship between the idea occurrence and the stages. Thus, the author adopts two theories that come from the background review, which include the four stages in analogical thinking (Holyak and Thagard, 1996) and the five levels of analogies in design field (Ricoeur, 1994).

Fig 4.1.3.a Relationship between levels and stages

Firstly, Holyak and Thagard (1996) propose that there are four stages in all analogical thinking included selection, mapping, evaluation and learning. It is the only theory that describes the process of analogical theory. The author uses their opinion to judge the designer’s analogical thinking. However, it is found that after the designers specify their analogical ideas to conceptual design, they still spent more time to draw more sketches which describe the detailed functions, structure, activating route and so on. It is a process that is representation of detailed ideas and images held in designer’s mind. The author deduces the process call the representation and adds it being a last stage behind the learning. This stage in computer media means that when designers finish their conceptual design, they start to do something to support their design, such as rendering, making an animation, or building the base.

Secondly, there are various kinds of discussing the types of analogy, such as methods of analogy, depths of analogy, the levels of analogy, types of source and so on. In the research, the author mainly tries to know what kinds of spatial relationships of the analogical ideas.

Ricoeur (1994) reported five levels of analogy included the analogy of proportion and equal relations, form, function, organization or structure, the free analogy, or poetical. Even though the theory is based on linguistics and semantics, the levels which the scholars mentions relates the spatial relationships in architecture. The author thinks that this classification not only clarifies effectively the subjects’ various kinds of analogy in their design but also support make the author know what levels of analogies happen in different stage and what the sequence of the analogies. The author offers new spatial definition of these levels. However, among the five levels of analogies, the level “proportion” is rare used in architectural field. It more often appear on the field of mathematics due to ratio among numbers in a set (Stafford, 2001). Designers rarely consider exactly relationship of numbers between analogical source and target, and they often use “property transfer”. Designers concern about the property of their design and transform some property from other fields, such as light, color, characters or special behaviors, but it is not contained in five levels; therefore, the author decides to delete the level “proportion” and add the new level “property” to the coding system. The five stages and five levels are defined to accurate meaning. Table 4.3.2 shows the coding scheme and definition. In addition, the free analogies in linguistic filed almost possess poetical meaning;

however, free analogy (poetical analogy) is difficult to definite in design domain. Therefore, the author removes the free analogy from the coding scheme.

Coding Definition

Stages Holyak and Thagard(1996) and the Author’s Deduction S Selection Choosing the sources to transfer

M Mapping Connecting the sources and target

E Evaluation Evaluating two or more decisions and selecting one of them

L Learning Confirming and sketching the final concept design R Representation Describe or improve the design details

Levels Ricoeur(1994) and the Author’s Deduction P Property Transferring the quality or characteristic

F From Transferring the appearance or shape from source Fu Function Transferring the spatial function

Str Structure Transferring structural relationship

Table 4.1.3.b The coding scheme of Analogical thinking

Then, the whole visual data and verbal data are structured by tables. One section is divided into several parts of one table by different moves. Table 4.1.3.c is the instance of one part included the main visual data, time, clarification and the coding scheme. The left area of Table 4.1.3.c is one or more key images of one move which the author adopts from the video recording data. But the analogical thinking process is too complicated to comprehend by only images, the clarification would support the visual data to be coded. Then, the author gives a short explanation about the move and offers other additional interpretations which come from the subjects’ brief interview or summary the analogical levels. The right area is the coding system that involves the five stage and five levels. Every move is classified to proper level. If any analogical idea happens in the move, the author would classify it to the suitable level.

The author defines the time of the analogical idea by the visualizing the definite analogy. For example, in the phase one, Subject C associates the three level of jellyfish body with the different spatial functions of a stall in the second move from the five minute to twelve minutes, but he does not specify this analogical idea on his sketch until the last move.

Therefore, this analogy is counted in the last move.

Time

S M E L R

Search for key words from the source material.

(The clarification that the author explain the move of the visual data)

He writes down 95% water, transparent, three layers of jellyfish body, slender tentacle, nematocyst, and illuminated.

(Additional interpretation about the analogical levels or the subject’s verbal data)

(If any analogical idea happens in the move, the author would classify it to the suitable level)

Table 4.1.3.c One part of the section: it is the instance of whole process of one section. All sections of the experimental processes are given in the appendix.