Using the FBS Ontology to Capture Semantic Design Information in Design Protocol Studies

This paper presents a method to capture semantic information from design protocols independently of the number of participants. The paper reports on a preliminary study that analyses a design protocol by using the FBS ontology and derives processes within this ontological framework by employing linkography. The usefulness of this method is examined by applying it to the DTRS7 Engineering 1 protocol (E1) as a case study and the focus is team creativity. The original 1990 FBS ontology captures 58% meaningful processes of all the coded processes, while the situated FBS ontology captures 84% meaningful processes of all the coded processes. Further coding analysis may improve this percentage. The session is characterized, according to the ontology, by the high percentage of behaviour reformulation, followed by structure reformulation, and analysis. This ontologically-based coding provides opportunities to understand and compare design protocols in a uniform manner independent of discipline or number of designers.