DesCom 101

Design is not just about Why you are designing this and How you did it.

Design is also about "WHY NOT"

Pushing Boundaries and Challenging the Status quo.

“You might think smoke alarms and thermostats are a cool home consumer product to work on. But they weren’t always. Not until Nest did their work. Design excellence can be embraced, worked towards and achieved in ANY product category. ” from Nick Chubb, Design Director at IDC.

Develop Robust Communication Skills to Explore Design Solutions.

Each Stroke Is a Curation of Micro-Decisions.

Four Types of Design Communications throughout the Process.

Step 1

Investigative Sketches

loose and creative

Objective

Draw quick and loose, Use sketch to understand a problem, analyze structure and elements relevant to the project.

work by Reid Schlegel

Step 2

Explorative Sketches

fleshed out and open to interpretation

Objective

Map out readable sketches. Generate and explore more to illustrate the more fleshed out ideas for evaluating.

work by Carl Liu

Step 3

Explanatory Sketches

clear and unambiguous

Objective

Create to explain context, interaction and functionality, often communicate a design in a clear and neutral manner.

work by Spencer Nugent

Step 4

Persuasive Sketches

convey an emotion and carry a story

Objective

It was drawn to influence the audience, convey the character and promote a design concept.

work by Kimberly Wu

Consolidate the Process with Different Purpose

The left column was created by Reid Schlegel

Develop Critical Thinking

What is the investigative sketch

Click this link_Investigative Sketches (analytical drawings) are the SOUL of Ideation Sketches.

Make a plan

Think before Do

Investigative Sketches (Analytic drawing)

▪ Architecture study based on design hypothesis, list all the potential configurations of the internal components.

▪ How to interact – Mechanism study (cross-section)

▪ Orthographic drawing

▪ Diagram

– Ergonomic analysis (proportion, interactions)

— Static or dynamic force analysis to anticipate potential problems.

— Cross-sectional diagram of the design

▪ Design experiments ABCD that relevant to your project

Keep use case in mind, exhaust all avenues, map out all the possibilities, combinations.

Keep this doodling to yourself and mix them as call-out for your ideation sketch (presentation level)

How It Started (investigative)

keep it to yourself or put diagram as callout for internal presentation page

Medium-fidelity Internal Review

find more example here and how it was developed into medium medium-fidelity sketch

Sketching with Prototyping

One of the best ways to gain insights in a design process is to carry out some form of prototyping. It produce an early, inexpensive, and scaled down version of the product in order to reveal any problems with the current design.

Why logic and reasoning is essential in creative thinking? – Watch Elon Musk at Baron Investment Conference

Find more constraints | Set more hypotheses | Make more design decisions | Focus more on details

Explorative Sketches

Be Exhaustive

Internal Review Quality + Quantity

Ideation sketch page should include the information below (in red):

– orthographic views, isometric drawings, close-ups or blow-up details, analytical diagrams (mix with the refined investigative diagram from the investigative sketches, also could put digital diagrams to achieve dynamic page composition), call-outs (graphic and text), cross-sections, multiple angles, assembly diagrams, and exploded views, to show the process of visual deliberation.

– different variations,

– diagrams (force analysis, ergonomic analysis, architecture layout from first round investigative sketch)

– design context,

– annotating or highlighting key elements

Here’s a demo of making a plan for visual deliberation

What is deep thinking?_Scroll down to the bottom and check the list of where the details come from