SiDi is not simply a research lab, it is an incubator for ideas. We are a group that helps you dig your own most significant potentials.

Explanation

The abbreviation of the System Integration & Design Informatics Laboratory is SiDi Lab. As indicated by the name, the lab research encompasses two areas, system integration and design informatics.

• What is system integration?

“In engineering, system integration is defined as the process of bringing together the component subsystems into one system and ensuring that the subsystems function together as a system.” – wiki

In SiDi, we are particularly interested in the integration in the large-scale complex systems context, which does not only contain physical artifacts but also include humans in the loop, such as Internet system, air transportation systems, power grid, market systems, etc. We develop models, tools, approaches and frameworks to study how individual entities integrated together to a system which has been functioning as the way you observed, and how such systems would evolve in the future.

• What is design informatics?

“Informatics is about structure, behavior, and interactions. It’s about natural and engineered information processors. Design is about the generation, development and testing of concepts. It’s about the creation of physical objects, capabilities or services. Design Informatics focuses on designing with data. We can harness massive connectivity, analytic power and industrial-strength simulation to design tangible products and intangible services to transform the ways we work, live at home, care for each other, and play. ” –  http://www.designinformatics.org/

In SiDi, we are particularly interested in understanding the design behaviors and interactions among designers or design teams in social-enabled design activities, such as open-source product development, crowdsourcing, community-based design & manufacturing, etc. We aim to bridge the game theories (theoretical studies) and behavioral experimentation (empirical studies) to better understand the engineering design process. The goal is to realize better mechanisms in social design and manufacturing in order to facilitate the interactions and interests of stakeholders in design.

Interpretation

SiDi is pronounced as [‘sdi]. The abbreviation of “SiDi” is coincidently the same with the way of pronouncing two Chinese characters, “思” and “迪”, in which “思” means thinking, ideas, thoughts and “迪” means enlightening, inspire, arouse. Our belief is that SiDi is not simply a research lab, it is an incubator for ideas. We are a group that helps you dig your own most significant potentials.