Approach to design - a tale of two situations

摘要

Craftsmen carried out product development in the early days. They were able to make only a limited number of any product that they have developed. When more numbers of the same product were demanded they could not meet the demand. Jones [1] identifies weaknesses in the craft evolution process as (a) the inability of the craftsmen to produce drawings of their work (b) the countless modifications of the product failures and successes in a process of trial-and-error, over centuries (c) discordant features produced because the evolution of craft did not assimilate the sudden change in the demand and (d) the use of the product as the principal storage of information. Design by Drawing was developed to alleviate the difficulties and shortcomings endured by craft evolution. Design by drawing essentially separated the thinking process from the making process. This process of design by drawing used the craft techniques of experimenting with physical models as and when necessary. This methodology is called the 'Conventional Design' approach. In conventional design practices and projects, the complexities of designing are dealt with by using a tentative solution as a rapid means of exploring both the situation that the design is to fit, and the relationships between the components of the design. This is sometimes called the 'Solution Focussed' approach.