RATIONAL AND EXPERIENTIAL DECISION-MAKING IN PRODUCT DESIGN

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/gtp.v13i1.137621

Keywords:

Design Decision-Making, Design Intuition, Product Design, Rational- Experiential Inventory

Abstract

Several studies on decision-making allow us to observe that professionals use one of two systems to define their projects: rational (i.e., inferential or analytical system that operates by rules of reasoning, relatively affect-free) or experiential/ intuitive (i.e., learning or automatic system that is intimately associated with affect). Professionals from creativity related areas may often need to make decisions without much concrete data, which requires the use of their intuition. This paper presents a study that aims to evaluate the reasoning process of making decisions by product designers in comparison to other professionals that work in the same field (i.e., engineers and architects). For this purpose, we used the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI). Overall, our results show a significant difference between engineers and the other professionals: they make decisions based on a more rational and less experiential system than architects and designers, although we didn’t find huge differences between designers and architects.

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Author Biographies

  • Valentina Marques da Rosa, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
    Mestre em Design pela Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos).
  • Roberta Rech Mandelli, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
    Mestranda no Programa de Pós Graduação em Design da Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos).
  • Priscila G. Brust-Renck, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
    Departamento de Engenharia de Produção e Transportes da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).
  • Leandro Miletto Tonetto, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
    Programa de Pós Graduação em Design da Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos).

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Published

2018-02-01

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2018)

Section

Papers

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How to Cite

ROSA, Valentina Marques da; MANDELLI, Roberta Rech; BRUST-RENCK, Priscila G.; TONETTO, Leandro Miletto. RATIONAL AND EXPERIENTIAL DECISION-MAKING IN PRODUCT DESIGN. Gestão & Tecnologia de Projetos (Design Management and Technology), São Carlos, v. 13, n. 1, p. 75–84, 2018. DOI: 10.11606/gtp.v13i1.137621. Disponível em: https://revistas.usp.br/gestaodeprojetos/article/view/137621.. Acesso em: 5 jan. 2026.