(A) Cheat Sheet to identify ‘Design Need and Opportunity’ 5W1H
Activities
Ask
Where?
Location
Where is this place?
What?
Observation*
What is happening? What Difficulties? | Frustrations? | Irritations？ Record:
On-location gesture sketches | Show user-product interaction |Annotations^ | Use photographs when possible | All recording using multi-perspectives*^.
Extra, record also: (What is) Your personal experience on the same event that happened, and Who else other than you might also experience that? Who?
Who’s involved
Identify Primary person(s) / user(s) = the Main Target Audience(s) experiencing the event. Identify Secondary person(s) = people who are or might be indirectly affected.
What?
Product(s) involved
What is it? | Find out what’s not working well | Why not working well? What really is the problem? | What is the root cause of the problem? = Use ‘Ask the Five Whys’ technique | Identify how it all started? What triggered the problem? | What if the problem lies with the user and not the product? i.e. a careless person / a clumsy person / a messy person / a lazy person /. Would the problem exist if the same product is used by someone else instead? Find out (Research): Are there any existing product(s) that may alleviate the problem? If YES
- Identify product(s) | Study function & limitations | Compare and contrast all possible similar products in the market = Product Analysis | Identify any upcoming to-be-released products (if any) | Identify areas of Improvements. - If identified possible improvement will be significant in value-adding existing designs and will certainly improve the situation, move on to - Establish a ‘Design Challenge’ Statement for IMPROVEMNET(S). This is equivalent to the most commonly used heading terms such as ‘Design Situation’, ‘Design Need’, ‘Design Opportunity’, ‘Problem Statement’, etc. - Now you have the ‘green light’ to ‘Design and Make’ a new version of the product that will be better / more innovative / more efficient / cheaper /more fun / more clever / a novelty, etc. You might end up with an invention.
If NO
- Re-evaluate identified NEED. - if NEED IS OK = it’s a genuine problem | i.e. a practical (happens that no one really spotted it or are bothered by this) problem. - if this is (also) worth the time and effort to solve = go ahead to design and create a solution. You are likely to end up with an invention. - Draft a ‘Design Needs and Opportunity’ statement. - if NEED NOT OK = No Genuine NEED | Not practical to attempt – Not worth the time and effort to solve, then - Make a record in your journal to justify and show evidence for what you had done in terms of research and identification, then repeat the whole process to look for a Design Opportunity.
Created by Daniel Lim. © 2015 Daniel Lim | email: mrdanielsos@yahoo.com.sg
(B) Cheat Sheet to identify ‘Design Challenge’ to Design Alternative Solutions Last but not least, if the above failed to get you a decent ‘Design Opportunity’ or if you just wished to use the following as a kickstarter, you are always welcomed to propose a ‘Design Challenge’ to design and make an alternative solution / a novelty product / a ‘clever’ solution / a beautiful looking (whatever) all for the pure sake of innovation, fun and entertainment. The outcome of the product need not be solving any problem(s) (because there are none in the first place). The outcome of the product is largely improvements purely to existing forms and functions – simply put – a luxury item - more of ‘want’ rather than ‘need’. This shall be a design challenge that challenges existing functions and forms that is already good but it will be made more beautiful, fun, faster, neater, cooler, nicer… (usually) more expensive…the list goes on but I think you get it. The objective or aim is to create “Wow!” effects. To make people ask “Why didn’t anyone think of that?” and say “Shut up and take my money!” Basically you attempt to revolutionize a traditionally accepted function and form of a product and make it appear and/or work in a new way. For example the beginning of the iPhone, the Star Wars BB-8 Droid or any novelty products or a Toilet Themed Restaurant in Taipei. BE WARNED that the ‘Identify Design Challenge’ approach may sound easy and simple. But in reality it can be quite difficult to even craft a credible context to justify a coursework project like this. Before you can draft your Design Challenge, you can expect to dive into some serious Product Analysis on various similar products. This process plays a major role in giving you the basis and a convincing reason to help you draft a ‘Design Challenge’ in this case. It is never easy to say I want to design a beautiful thing while there is no problem with the existing solutions because the (Singapore) Design & Technology Coursework expectation is more problem solving by nature. The way to do research to writing your design challenge statement will be very different from the conventional approach of a typical design coursework. If you MUST do this, gear your Design Challenge statement towards an improvement to a certain form or function and state why that is necessarily so.
Final notes: Having said all of the above, if you go shopping, almost every newly launched product you see in the market is of various degrees of improvements to the previous versions in one way or another. It is safe for you to propose for your coursework a project to improve any existing products. But you must have a keen eye to look out for any ‘unidentified’ or ‘potential’ design improvements from a rage of existing products. If you are really keen in doing a meaningful and enriching coursework project, nothing should stop you from producing a decent piece of work. 5W1H
Activities
Ask
What
A Design Challenge
(a) About Functionalities VERY IMPORTANT FIRST QUESTION: “Do I want to go for novelty / a clever / a fun / an entertaining / etc. idea to make things work?” The above question sets your design direction and affects the way you generate ideas later. Do I go for an overall functionality or aesthetics ‘makeover’ or both? Have I done sufficient research on existing products for me to conclude that the new functional changes / improvements / etc. I will be proposing in the design challenge have not been done before? If YES, check again if there are any more existing solutions you missed that already have your proposed ‘new features’ incorporated in the product. Product Analysis: How do they work in a similar or dissimilar way? Preliminary Idea Play: You can sketch and doodle. But keep it at doodle level. Think, How else can I produce the same outcome but using a different way to make it work? How else can I make it work? What alternative ways? What can be made better? How might ‘novelty’ for this function look like? (Replace ‘novelty’ with ‘clever’, ‘fun’, ‘entertaining’, etc., whichever design keywords you have chosen earlier on. Gather and consolidate: Which new functional aspect goes to my design challenge? Draft a ‘Design Challenge’ statement to design and make a novelty / a clever / a fun / an entertaining /etc. product. Extract information and consolidate from your research work to provide the necessary context to justify your design challenge. (b) About Aesthetics How does all similar products look like? Which is different and how different? Is there an opportunity for a breakthrough in terms of its current form but not compromising on its functionality? Created by Daniel Lim. © 2015 Daniel Lim | email: mrdanielsos@yahoo.com.sg
Additional notes: *
Research methods: Observation, Shadowing, Interviewing (and asking the 5 Whys), Narration and Survey.
^
For students who cannot sketch-record fast enough, he/she may wish to make at least one quick initial sketch of the context (or none if that is really not possible). Followed by descriptive key words to record the events that is happening in the observation. After which the student may use his/her records to sketch the context, gestures, movements, etc. complete with annotations to fully describe the observed event.
*^
Show in 2D plane, i.e. on paper, via a sketch or a photographic image (selectively out of a possible 360° view of the same subject) of the event taking place. Show close-up (zoomed-in) view of the action and interaction, show the emotions of the target audience(s). Show ‘zoomed-out’ view of the action and interaction to show a bigger picture of the context.
Created by Daniel Lim. © 2015 Daniel Lim | email: mrdanielsos@yahoo.com.sg