Design quality: evaluating quality as a tool and the potential impact upon design outcomes of quality frameworks

The Australian Government has introduced a policy that requires universities to comply with quality and excellence programs to receive institutional funding. In this thesis I report on my research, which examined this policy agenda. In carrying out the research I focused on three issues. The first was the history of quality assurance and its use as a tool for managing organisational outcomes. The second was whether design school academics believe design can be measured within a quality framework and, if so, what they thought the impact of such measures might be on innovation. The third was where quality assurance frameworks have been an effective governmental monitoring tool. In response to these issues, I have discussed the term 'quality' and its transformation into complex frameworks with rigorous assessment metrics that demand institutional and organisational compliance. Within the duration of this study, I used surveys of design school academics to gain insight into what quality mean to designers. The findings suggest that, in its purest form, quality has increasingly evolved into a fit-for-purpose model and has emerged from manufacturing requirements to ensure product reliability; however, quality has become more sophisticated and pervasive in organisational and institutional processes. This has provided a context for the evolution of quality as a component of the Rudd government’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative. This research is important, as it fills a gap in knowledge concerning the capacity for design and design research to be measured within a quality framework. It is particularly relevant, as design research can be electronic, written, an artefact or a combination of all, which increases problems of assessment, measurement and ranking. Design’s symbiotic relationship with its resulting object, structure, communication or artefact raises difficulties when metrics-based quality formulae are adopted for design and design research comparisons. This is because judgements about design are often deeply personal and are the result of cultural, gender and socioeconomic influences. Unlike the sciences they cannot be clinically or statistically measured with regard to process improvement or intended outcomes and are open to individual interpretation. While arguments for accountability persist, adherence to time frames and structural processes will impact upon tardiness and disorganisation. I argue, however, that quality improvements are obtainable and will be identifiable in the second generation of design. Improved research will enable greater scholarly knowledge and the provision of opportunities for more informed designers to produce a greater quality outcome.