Elsevier

Design Studies

Volume 63, July 2019, Pages 125-154
Design Studies

Card-based design tools: a review and analysis of 155 card decks for designers and designing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2019.04.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Brief history of card decks as design tools.

  • Comprehensive survey and analysis of 155 card-based design tools.

  • Classification of the tools into six categories, e.g. human-centred design and creative thinking.

  • Analysis of how the card-based tools are supposed to work.

  • Evaluations of the tools based on examples of testing or application.

Many card-based design tools have been produced, initially to aid creativity and user participation in design, with an upsurge post-2000 when numerous card decks were developed. Reviewers have classified the tools using samples ranging from five to thirty-eight. Our comprehensive inventory and analysis of 155 card-based tools offers a more robust classification, with three-quarters aiming to facilitate creative thinking, human-centred design, or domain-specific methods. The few scientific trials of these tools indicate they enable designers to generate more innovative concepts, and feedback indicates that cards can aid the design process and provide information, methods, or good practice in handy form. However, cards are usually tested and applied by their developers, so more independent trials are needed to establish their effectiveness.

Section snippets

A brief history of card-based design tools

One of the earliest examples of card-based design tools is The House of Cards created in 1952 by the acclaimed American designers, Charles and Ray Eames. Each of the 54 cards shows a different object. The Eames' refer to these objects as ‘the good stuff’, selected to celebrate ‘familiar and nostalgic objects from the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms.’ (Yunghans, 2007). Slots on each card enable them to be interlocked (Figure 1) and the cards are often bought as a classic design or

Strengths and weaknesses of card decks as a design tool

A few developers and reviewers have discussed the strengths, and some weaknesses, of using physical card decks as aids to design.

Carneiro, Barros, and Costa (2012), developers of i|o Cards to help design interactive digital artefacts, discuss the strengths of card decks as a design tool:

‘External representations … are important … during a design development … such as sketches, prototypes, models, images and movies. […] One approach to facilitate externalization and communication during the

Reviews and classifications of card-based design tools

Given these many card-based tools for different purposes, there have been attempts to review and classify them, to help designers decide which to use.

One attempt is that by Miemis (2012) who lists 21 card decks which she categorised into (Design) Principles & Processes; (User) Experience & Game Design; Communication & Learning; Visioning & Foresight; Ideation and Brainstorming.

Other online reviews of card decks include those by Donaldson (2010), who lists what he considers the ten best card

How are the card-based design tools supposed to work?

Examining the selected card decks and individual cards in each deck, with any accompanying instructions, also provided an understanding of how the tools are supposed to work. Möller (2014) groups card decks based on what they are supposed to do, namely: Framework cards (task checklists); Index cards (digests of information or methods); Libraries cards (useful data); Strategy cards (thinking strategies); Grid cards (selection criteria); and Visual inspiration cards (pictorial prompts). Based on

Evaluations of card-based design tools

How useful do designers and other users find card-based tools? Do the tools help produce more innovative or better designs? To answer these questions, it is necessary to review available information on their development, testing and practical application.

Most of the card decks have been created by academics or by design or management consultants, with a few developed for in-house use by corporations such as IBM. This means that evidence on the value of cards is typically found in publications

Discussion and conclusions

Numerous card-based design tools have been produced. The first few, produced from the 1950s to the 1980s, mainly aimed to stimulate creative thinking. Then in the 1980s and 1990s a few card-based tools were created to facilitate user participation in workplace and IT systems design. An upsurge occurred after 2000 when numerous card decks began to be produced, not only for general creative thinking and problem solving but to provide methods for human-centred design, especially of digital

Acknowledgements

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The authors would like to thank the Open University for providing the research facilities to undertake this study and the many authors who made their card decks available for analysis.

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