New Book Chapter from Asst. Prof. Dr. Parvin Heidari!

The book chapter titled "Research and Examination of Designers' Cognitive Thoughts in the Design Process: Protocol Analysis Method by Action Category" by Asst. Prof. Dr. Parvin Heidari, Deputy Head of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design (Tr&Eng) Departments, was prepared by Gece Publishing House and edited by Prof. Dr. Latif Gürkan Kaya was published in the book titled "Academic Studies in the Field of Architecture, Planning and Design".

According to Heidari, investigating the designer's mindset, one of the mysterious aspects of the design process has always been an interesting subject for design researchers. Among the topics that attract the attention of researchers in this field; There are topics such as design thinking and creativity, cognitive activities of designers in the design process, and the contribution of the designer's physical behavior to the design process. On the other hand, efforts to develop methods that enable the qualitative issues researched to be transformed into quantitative data and analyzed are also frequently encountered.

Within the scope of the study, the place of the protocol analysis method, which is a method within the scope of qualitative research, in the literature was examined in detail, and then the "Protocol Evaluation" and "Analysis" methods proposed by Suwa and Tversky (1997) and developed by Suwa, Gero, and Purcell (1998a) were examined in detail. A coding scheme referencing the “Action Category” was defined and analyzed. In order to predict this analysis method; The diversity of design ideas and actions of an architecture student in the conceptual design phase was observed through an experimental study. The data obtained as a result of this experimental study was coded and analyzed according to action categories.

Research results show that the protocol analysis method's coding scheme according to action category is a suitable method for qualitative and experimental research. It is thought that the use of this analysis method in the field of design enables the cognitive activities of designers to be systematically identified using the protocol coding scheme. As a result, designers' cognitive behavior in different design processes can be represented as a structure consisting of defined actions and activities. This provides a basis for defining the structure of the designer's cognitive process at different mental levels.

We congratulate Asst. Prof. Dr. Parvin Heidari and wish her continued success.