Design Considerations & Constraints > Design Specifications > Ideation & Refinement

FOLLOW and LIKE on Facebook to get updates as soon as a new post is up: https://www.facebook.com/designjournalsos

.............................................................

Whiteboard Demo (2011)

Class Demo (2011)

Pre-Design Considerations Must Knows

Before you start drafting your design considerations, you must know the outcomes of your design opportunity. 

• Some design opportunities point to improvement(s) of certain functions or safety.
• Others could primarily be targeted at a specific target audience and how they interact with the context. 
• Rarely, but if you are lucky you may find one that aims to solve a bugging problem that seems to have no viable solutions at the present. 
• Some are proposed to simply create fun. Nothing else. There are no particular functional value-added features. Just catering to lifestyle and luxury. 

Knowing precisely what you want out of your design proposal helps a lot in drafting a good set of design considerations. 

Because that will mean you will be very spot on in identifying the areas of considerations. Otherwise yours will simplistically be stating the obvious universal areas like, products should be safe for users and must look good, must be colorful, etc.

Design Considerations

The design considerations phase is where you make a list of factors that need to be considered in broad terms. You do not need to go into the details (i.e. the specifics) at this stage.

The type and number of factors you have is unique for each project. That means everyone will have their own set of design considerations specific to their design brief. A good set of design considerations accurately addresses the unique areas of concerns of your proposal as written in your design brief. 

The design considerations and constraints will sound like, "If I want to (insert your design brief here), what are the areas I must consider and what are the areas of constraints (or limitations)".

I suggest you include a healthy list of 

1. functional requirements, and
2. requirements relating to how you want your users to interact with the product. 

These list will be VERY handy when you start your Idea Generation phase.

Design Constraints (or Limitations)

Design constraints (of limitations) are the extensions of design considerations. 

In every design attempt, there will be limitations or constraints or some form of hindrance. Some projects may be constrained by physical space or budget. Some limited by the choice of materials or colors. And most with a time constraint.

Drafting your Design Considerations & Constraints

To draft your Design Considerations and Constraints, you may begin with asking the following question out loud in your head:

'To (insert your design brief here), what must I consider? I must consider ....'

'To (insert your design brief here), what are are some of the constraints? The constraints are....'

! Research for Design Specifications !

Every factors that appeared in your design opportunities and constraints should prompt and lead you to an area of research. They must be researched to gather relevant data and/or information about them to be written as Design Specifications. 

It is also at this stage where various critical dimensions (product dimensions) and anthropometry data are gathered.

Some examples of researches:

Critical Dimension: If you are designing a ketchup bottle holder, then you will be researching on various brands of ketchup and take measurements off the bottle. You might also be interested in average diameter across all selling brands in Singapore. 

Areas: If you are designing a piece of furniture to be placed in a room, then a possible limitation data would be the maximum area the piece of furniture should take. That specified area will determine the maximum floor area that newly designed furniture should occupy.

Anthropometric Data: If you are designing a chair for a child, then you might need the average bodily dimensions of a child of a certain age group. Which specific dimensions you need depends on what you will be designing. Do not take measurements for the sake of taking them. 

Weights: If you are designing objects to be handled by the elderly who have weak arms, then the product should have a limit to its overall weight. Research might be in the form of experimentations on how comfortable in terms of weight the elderly can carry. Or from any reliable research medical data, etc.

Functionality, usability, costs, time, etc. are other factors that can be researched for drafting the Design Specifications whenever possible.

Remember to include images, photographs and annotations for all your research.

The Design Specifications

This is probably one of the most important phase in your design journey apart from finding a real design need.

The link: The design specifications are 'specific instructions' for the purpose of Idea Generation . In other words, the list of design specifications specifies and details all the functional and the aesthetical requirements of your product. i.e. that your product MUST do.

A good set of design specifications sets the path for Idea Generation. Ideas can be generated to satisfy one specification point at a time and eventually synthesized to include all the specification requirements.

You might be interested to note that the number of points for your list of design specifications happens to be same number of points from your list of design considerations and constraints. 

So you never have to ask your teacher 'how many design specifications must I write?". 

An example showing how a Specification point is created:

A typical thought process for design specifications will be,

"I want to (insert your design brief here). One of my (1) consideration is the internal diameter of the ketchup bottle mouth. I did my (2) research on that and got an average of 25mm from five different brands of ketchup available in FairPrice and Shop & Save supermarkets."

Now my (3) design specification is, 'The product must be able to be inserted into a bottle mouth that is not bigger than 25mm in diameter".

Idea Generation & Refinement

A super brief guide on Idea Generation:

Step 1: 

Focus on one specification point at a time. 

Step 2: 

Generate ideas that satisfy the functions first. 

Step 3: 

Always check the usability of your ideas with the target audiences. Keep on refining the functionalities until it works.

Step 4: 

Refine the aesthetics (styling).

Step 5: 

In no particular order, constantly consider product functionality and usability, refine material choices, number of parts, jointing methods, overall size, suitability of color choices and combinations, type of finishing, suitability and practicality of user-solution-environment use.

Step 6: 

Always summarize your ideas by re-drawing your solutions in context showing the user using the product and the product used in its environmental context.

A reminder to all my students or online students: 

The journal is for you to record your thoughts, thinking processes and your decisions. Recordings can be done with annotations on relevant images (if required).

The Design Brief (and deeper insights)

FOLLOW and LIKE on Facebook to get updates as soon as a new post is up: https://www.facebook.com/designjournalsos

.............................................................

There is no ONE way to approach a design journal. How do I start? Where do I start?

And the answer is, ANYWHERE & ANYHOW. 

But you must know what you are doing and how to do it. This requires a great deal of experience. Your teachers may be available to help. Otherwise, stick to starting from the beginning. Use the resources in this blog to help you along if you require further reading and insights.

It is perfectly possible to start your coursework with a design brief even before you have identified any design need. The N Level Normal (Technical) syllabus D&T coursework is such an example. This explains why the Design Brief post is here at this early stage of the coursework. In case you are wondering why.

This is also applicable to the N(A) and Express coursework.

While there is nothing wrong stating up front a design brief in the beginning of your journey, it is more important that you must know how to make progress. For example how to work back and forth to complete the information that you need, so the journal is complete.

Consultations & Bookings available if you need an help or boost. 

—————————— —————————— ——————————

A Design Brief is a concise statement stating what you intend to do. For D&T it is simply saying to yourself “I want to design and make a …”

This brief but powerful statement should also include primarily who the user(s) is and it’s location, what the solution is going to be, the intent of the solution, and the situation / problem the solution intends to solve. Without getting in too much details. While at the same time allowing a full spectrum of ideation possibilities.

Below is an example of a design brief:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Design Brief

'Design and make a kitchen paper towel holder which will not take up too much space on the kitchen table and also will not hinder cleaning the kitchen top'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Take a step backwards, take a closer look and see what we can discover

In this case, you claim that the kitchen towel storage is taking up too much space.

If you set yourself a task to design a storage so that it 'does not take up too much space', what do you think that implies about the existing storage? - So, the size of the holder is really too big for the table? Really?

5 Whys

Use the 5 'Whys' and very soon you'll find out if the size of the storage is really the problem.

For example:

The kitchen holder is taking up too much space on the kitchen table.

Why the kitchen holder is taking up too much space on the kitchen table?

Because the table is currently cluttered with bottles of spices and for drying kitchen stuffs like pots and pans.

Why are those things on the table taking up space?

Because there are no other proper storage areas to cater for pots and pans. Can't put them on the floor to dry right? And where else can the spices go to? The whole kitchen is full of stuffs!

Why...

It does not need to go beyond the third 'why' to conclude that the size of the kitchen tower holder isn't the problem! Perhaps a new way of organizing stuffs in kitchen needs to be worked out. Or the solution could be as simple as working out redundant stuffs and getting them out of the way to make space!

Can you imagine if the solution ended with a brilliantly more compact kitchen tower holder? That doesn't solve anything. But a wasted effort to design something that isn't really doesn't meet the need of the problem.

Conclusion

As a rule of thumb, whenever you think you have identified design needs or design opportunities, they must automatically prompt you to research to support those claims. 

In case you jumped ahead, or inspirations struck, and you want to make a, say, an ERASER HOLDER because..., remember to take a step back, use the 5 'Whys' to make sure you nail the real need behind it.

So, at the end of the day... RESEARCH. Establish your claims. Prove and justify your claims. Refrain from simply writing some ambiguious design situation, need or brief that is not an outcome of good research.

Reminder

Researches should be well supported with photographs, images and purposeful annotations.

Two Common Blunders with regards to 'Identified Problems'

FOLLOW and LIKE on Facebook to get updates as soon as a new post is up: https://www.facebook.com/designjournalsos

.............................................................

Save you hours of confusion frustration and useless works.

Get your Ultimate Guide to Mindmapping from Theme to Design Needs & Opportunities HERE: https://mrdanielsos.gumroad.com/l/gamlp

TWO MOST COMMON BLUNDERS OF (THE SO CALLED) IDENTIFIED PROBLEM

1) The most frequent blunder when a student identifies a 'problem' situation and then follows through it without finding out if that was worth pursuing. Why so?

For most of the time, if the student were to do some research, he/she will likely find out that there are already existing product(s) or solution(s) in the market for that 'identified problem'. 

When a (right) product (the solution) is not there on-location to resolve the scenario it does not mean GO MAKE. It should prompt you to do some research for any existing solution.

These students, instead of finding out the probable existence of a solution to alleviate the problem, he/she ends up making something that is not really needed to be made. A product that is not authentic in solving a problem. Most of such attempts to make a product rarely value-adds anything.

Take a look at the following examples and learn how you can go about it:

• Books are messy? Ask Why. GO GET the right shelve!
• Shoes are messy? Ask why. GO GET a shoe rack! Cheap ones, designer ones, expensive ones. Anything. One that is of the RIGHT SIZE. RIGHT MATERIAL, etc.
• Cannot find your pencils? GO GET a good storage system, or get your memory upgraded! LEARN to be NEATER.

The following sketch shows a typical common identified problem as design opportunity. If it is simplistically tackled , the project is busted:

Before you go say go make an 'innovative' (or whatever) bookshelf, have you thought about 

1) Why there is overcrowding in the first place? More about the Five Whys later. 

2) Is the shelve the right size for the additional books that you just bought? If not why.

3) Is the problem with you who is messy by nature and therefore the mess? 

The solutions for the respective questions we just generated could be

1) Minimize overcrowding by getting a new shelve for other genres of books. No space for a new shelf, then perhaps you should consider not getting anymore. Donate your books and keep those you really need! etc.

2) Maybe it is time to upsize your shelve. IKEA has lots of them.

3) Buckle up your own attitude and learn to be neater when you store those books.

The problem is not the lack of space, not the lack of bookshelves, not the lack of bigger book shelves, not the issue of too many books, the problem is the USER. Solve the heart and mind problem and you solve the physical problem.

That being said, if it culminates to a Design Challenge to design or redesign or to revolutionalise the 'functionality' and 'use-experience' of a traditional bookshelf, taking in consideration to work towards 'novelty' or 'cleverness' of a new idea , it is another matter altogether. And very legitimate for a potentially good project.

A Deeper Analysis of the Bookshelf Example:

DESIGN SITUATION

A design situation for the graphic example may look something like the following:

"I have many books. And the books are very messy. I cannot find my books and sometimes my books get lost. The book shelf is too small for all my books.

DESIGN BRIEF

It will also typically end up with the following Design Brief:

"Design and make a bookself to store all my books".

Let's Analyse the 'Problem'

The is nothing really wrong to write the the situation or the brief like so. What is really wrong lies in the fact that this finding is the attitude of being too 'simplistic' - one that does not engage a thorough thinking-through process to determine if the proposed design situation is really a need area that requires another product to solve.

What Next? A Solution to Move On...

Use questions to help you look at the same problem in new perspectives:

I will ask "Is the book shelf designed to store more books than it is designed for?" If not, then if you choose to pile your books and overload the bookself with books, of course it will be overcrowded and untidy (assuming if you had not bothered to tidy them up)!!!

Use the '5 Whys'...

The '5 Whys' should lead you to where the root problem may be... and more often than not, you may end up discovering that the real problem lies on the individual who is just too lazy to tidy things up and therefore ended up with mess and untidiness. If that is the case will designing and making another book storage solve the problem?

An example of asking the 'Five Whys'

Very very long ago I had a student who came to me and wanted to design and make an egg tray. Very cute proposal isn't it?

I asked what the egg tray is for... and he told me that the egg tray will be used to store eggs in the fridge. How brilliant of me....

If you are his teacher, what would you do?

Do you go ahead and design an egg tray??

So, I started probing further by beginning with a first why, I asked,

Teacher: "Why do you need to design and make an egg tray for the fridge?

Student: "There is no space to put eggs in the fridge".

Teacher: "Why there is no space in the fridge to put eggs?"

Student: "My sister filled up the egg tray with her sweets".

Teacher: (*With amazement*) "Why did your sister fill up the egg tray with her sweets???"

Student: (*pause*) "Because there is not space in the fridge to put her sweets".

Teacher: (*WIth more amazement*) "Why isn't there space in the fridge to put her sweets???"

Student: "The fridge is full of stuffs. Crowded with food and fruits and everything else".

Teacher: (*Curious*) "Why are there so many food and fruits and everything else?"

Student: "My mum buys many food items that had been in the fridge for a very long time..."

I do not need to continue much further to conclude that if I allowed the student to design and make a WONDERFUL and INNOVATIVE egg holder, it would not help solve the problem, not even a bit.

Finally I'll bring back one of the point I mentioned above: 'That being said, if it culminates to a Design Challenge to design or redesign or to revolutionalise the 'functionality' and 'use-experience' of a traditional bookshelf, taking in consideration to work towards 'novelty' or 'cleverness' of a new idea , it is another matter altogether. And very legitimate for a potentially good project.'.

2) Not Considering "Why didn't the GREAT company, the REAL Designers think of that (my problem)?"

If you think you just found a great problem to solve or a great solution to a problem (when you do idea generation), always stop and take the step to understand why they are not made and/or selling in the market from the perspective of business or product design business in the first place.

Could it be that the designers / companies overlook this problem or did not find the solution that you found? Or there might be reasons why they did not (want to) go ahead with the solution - for some economical or practical reasons. Products that generate profit for the company is all that matters in business. Many things can be made, but many would end up too costly from research, to prototyping to manufacturing that yield little returns. In some cases negative returns. Think about these things. Your teacher may be able to help you with this second concept.

Get this step done, and you'll most likely be working on a real good deal.

Conclusion

Are you convinced that it is important to identify a GOOD and GENUINE design opportunity to work on? It requires some effort. But that will save you from spending the next few months designing something that is meaningless and does not improve the situation.

Research areas in Design Journaling

Most graduating D&T students will be completing their prototypes in the workshop by June. 

The faster ones would have completed theirs before the June holidays. Are you one of them? Please do not wait till July and find yourself still working on your prototype. Once your prototype (or artefact) is completed, it is time to revisit your Design Journal and make sure whatever needed to be in are in. 

One area I always find myself emphasizing to my students during coursework consultations is the presence of Research components in their Design Journals. It is tough to spot where they are or which is missing because Research is all over the place. Because it is so tough and lengthy to always repeat - I've decided to put on record what I would look out for for easy reference - which in turn also allows me to clear my thoughts about this matter.

As mentioned in the disclaimer section, the information you read below '...are not meant to be prescriptive and used rigidly without forethought. Students are strongly encouraged to apply the principles in their design journey with discretion.' The points below are also non-exhaustive. You can think of more areas as you work your journal.

Let's begin...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What exactly is 'Research'?

In the D&T design model 'Research' is linked to all four major design elements  - Identification of 'Design Needs', to 'Ideation and conceptualization', 'Refinement and Development' and finally 'Realisation/Prototyping'. 

'Research is everywhere'. I always tell my students. But what does that mean? What does that mean in terms of the extension of research work to be done in the journal? What are they?

Adding on to that, the marking component under Research is one score for the whole coursework. That means the final score you'll get for Research is a collective summary of all the researches and decisions you have made to discover, find out, investigate, clarify, gather evidence and data for the iterative design journey to take place meaningfully.

How do I make sure I did not miss anything out?

The Tricky Part

An authentic design journal has no specific page or place in the journal where you can point and a certain type of research can be identified there and then. It can be quite difficult to determine if the student did cover all or most researches comprehensively throughout the design journal. Only the immediate coursework facilitator (teacher) knows best and knows where to find them. 

If you know another teacher is going to mark your coursework make sure you indicate and highlight your research work done clearly at every design stage - especially those that you used to make important critical decisions to move on. Do not make the examiner find your work. You show them where they are. Do that as frequently as you can in your journal. 

Isn't it nice if you are able to justify your next move with researched information whenever someone asked you?

A quick example about the above point:

Say you have decided to choose Design Situation A over Design Situation B. You ought to be ready to present and record in your journal what justified that decision. Is it because Design Situation A is a more practical problem to solve compared with Design Situation B? Making it requires less time and is found to be more cost effective? More people will benefit from a solution from Design Situation A than B? Or Design Situation B is good but you do not have the knowledge / technological expertise or machinery support to realize the project, etc.

This example above makes up a part of research which will be considered in the end of your coursework as a whole. If this justification is missing, then there is no valid reasons for picking Design Situation A over Design Situation B. Your decision to go with Situation A is probably just random.

Do not make this mistake: Sometimes a student  might have done reasonably well in the initial stage of design. Say an excellent theme definition and exploration using a mindmap. It could be a Level 3 or 4 (pass score range) type of work at that stage. They get too delighted and immediately ignored the need to maintain that quality level of research work throughout the design journal. When the final research score turned out low they wondered why. 

You cannot just have an excellent start and think your research score is secured thereafter. It does not work that way for Research. You must have consistently good and meaningful research throughout. And then end well. Think in term of how Grade Point Average (GPA) works. You must Research and make Decisions well at the Situation stage, the Ideation stage, the Development stage as well as the Realization/Prototyping stage. You should maintain good quality research for all design stages to stay at average Level 3 score or better.

I need to clarify now that at no point throughout the coursework you teacher will ever give you a score as an indicator of how you fared. You might be told that it is either well done or more work need to be done. Maybe an indicator that you are a Level 1 & 2 or 3 & 4 range.

Let's break 'Research' down. What are they in the Design Journal?

Note: All researches done must have a decision made at the end. Researches with no conclusion are useless information because they do not help make a good decision. Types of Research required or expected in a Design Journal varies from one to the other. They can be a combination of a few or all of the following: 

(A) To arrive at Design Situation / Design Needs and Opportunities

• When you define your theme.
• When you explore your the theme via (for example) a Mindmap hoping to identify a good design opportunity.
• When you study your Target User(s) to better understand where the problem lies.
• When you study and learn from a certain process to identify what has gone wrong.
• When you study and learn about a certain product that is involved in the problem to find out their limitations, etc.
• When you assess the practicality of a potential design situation compared to the others.
• When you obtain your critical dimensions and gather your anthropometric data to be considered in your Design Specifications.
• When you justify quantitative values (e.g. exact number of pencils to store, maximum size of product, etc.) to be included in your Design Specifications
• etc.

 (B) For Ideation

• When you study and make decisions on functions, shapes and forms from existing products (natural and man-made) for inspiration to be incorporated in your ideas.
• When you study and make decisions on why some products worked and why some failed. So you can make better decisions on the type of  functionality for your product.
• When you include an image of an object from which you draw your inspiration from for your first sketch and the subsequent ones.
• When you study and make decisions on colors, materials, texture, jointing methods to be incorporated in your ideas.
• When you use of your image board for inspiration on how your product should look like or function in a certain manner, etc.
• When you use of a theme board to determine color scheme for product.
• etc.

(C) For Development

• When you study and make decisions on alternative color schemes for refinement.
• When you study and make decisions on alternative jointing methods for better quality joints or for quicker installation.
• When you study and make decisions on alternative finishing methods or techniques that best suits your target user and the environment.
• When you evaluate your refined solution with your Design Specifications.
• etc,

 (D) For Realisation / Prototyping

• When you research and find out the most appropriate tool and machines to use.
• When you research and find out the best way / quickest way / most efficient way to finish your product.
• When you research and find out the correct way to lacquer, spray lacquer or spray paint, etc.
• When you research and find out special techniques to form or make your prototype.
• When you test and evaluate your prototype with your Design Specifications.
• etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here you go. Research components throughout your Design Journal. Always remember to justify any way forward any time. As long as you can justify why you do this or that, you have researched. For sure.

All the best. Drop me a note if you disagree or find a mistake or have any other inputs. I'll be happy credit your efforts.

Finding Design Opportunities 'On-Location' and Using 'On-Location Photographs'

Finding Design Opportunities using 'photographs' and 'observations' on-site are pretty similar where you use your eyes and 'observe' what you see and use your mind to make sense of what is happening on the ground.

Record your observations in detail using more photographs, various forms of illustrations and annotations. The difference is, the former you can do it at the comfort of your home, and the latter, you do it, well, ... on-location!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Introduction

Using on-location photographs are useful strategies to identify genuine needs and design opportunities. 

Firstly because the source - the photographs -  came from a real location.

And secondly, the activities happening and the people involved in them are also genuine. They are happening in the real world in real time. 

Nothing gets closer than experiencing problems first hand. No drama. 

The best sources of information gathered from researches are from primary researches. 

Using a photograph that you take on your own is as close as it gets to primary research.

Fig. 1: A (Fictional) Sketch showing People in a Satay Club and the Activities Around

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  

STUDENT: "I have the photograph(s) now. What do I do with it?" (see Fig. 1, 2 or 3)

Step 1: A General 'Scan' of the Environement

Cover every corner of the photograph or the chosen location, stop and observe (in detail) at the activities that is going on. Identify objects and products that people interact with. Identify the Target Audiences (Targer User or Target Group) as you go along. Anaysing activities with the Target Audiences in mind is more useful than with a generalized group of people.

• You can begin anywhere in the photograph or the scene, or
• You can select a point and go clockwise or anti-clockwise, or
• You can begin by imagining how you would start walking as if you are in the picture from left to right or vice versa.

Look at what is in front of you and ask, 'What do I see?" then ask more questions (keeping the theme in mind) to 'dig' out more information from the scene. You can use  '5W1H' to help you with this activity.

For example, you ask:

• "Who are the people there?"
• "Where are they going?"
• "What are they doing?"
• "Why are they doing ....?"
• "What (products) are they using to do...?"
• "What problems might they be facing?"
• "Why do they have this problem / inconvenience / frustration?"
• "What could have caused the problem / inconvenience / frustration?" , etc.
• "How does this or that work?", etc.

Or you may have spotted someone's expression and then ask,

• "Why does he/she look quite frustrated?"
• "What happened actually?", etc.

The number and the type questions you can ask is limitless. One question will lead to the other as you try to dig out what is happening at that moment. The more questions you can generate to grill the activities in the photograph or the scene, the more information and insight you will get. 

 

Step 2: Use P.I.E.S. to Identify and Make a list of Needs

• Begin with the Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Social  ('P.I.E.S.') Needs analysis tool to make a list and categorize the different type of NEEDs on the activities that is going on in the scene.
• Start from identifying Physical Needs, follow on to Intellectual Needs, Emotional Needs and finally Social needs that either present or required based on your observations and interpretation of the photograph or on the scene.
• From identifying and recording the various types of NEEDs, Design Opportunities can be identified.

Step 3: Use  'Activity Mapping' to Study Processes and identify Objects for Improvements

To start using the 'Activity Mapping' tool, you should first select an identified NEED area from Step 3.

For example, your target group are the Elderlies and you target location is Home. There are so many areas around the home. You may choose to focus on the Kitchen.

There are so many things that can happen in the kitchen and you may have identified some 'physical needs' related to activities happening in the kitchen. You might choose to focus on one of activities which happens to be 'pouring a cup of water' from a kettle in the kitchen.

Due to aging and poorer eyesight with less agile hand-eye coordination, you find there was frequent spillage of water on the table. So this is a 'Physical Need' area that needs to pay attention to.

You can then use 'Activity Mapping' to study how an elderly would interact with the cup and kettle and how he pours water out of it into the cup.

• The Activity Mapping is an excellent tool for working out processes and procedures, and also for identifying Products in use. Which in turn is excellent for identifying potential product improvements.

Step 4: Identify the Root Causes

• If you do follow faithfully from Step 1 to 3, I am sure you will by now gathered quite a bit of investigations and insights about what has gone on within the environment concerned. 
• You will also be loaded with quite a bit of identified Design Opportunities after engaging 5W1H, the P.I.E.S analysis & the Activity Mapping  tool to identify NEED areas and the products involved.

However, not every problem or design opportunities you have identified are good for solving. Design Opportunities may refer to all identified 

a) problems or potential problems to solve,

b) areas for product for improvements,

c) design challenge for an alternative or another clever idea, or

d) opportunity for an invention.

• In reality, some 'problems' you identified may not even be problems as it seems! They are in your potential design opportunity list because of your 'assumptions' and 'good guesses' that they are problems. 
• Next, you should be concerned about finding the root causes of those 'problems' you have identified to making sure your design opportunity is really worth spending the next few months solving and subsequently working out a solution.
• To 'find the root cause', you'll have to engage the 'Five Whys' technique to test your assumptions and to get to the root cause(s) of those so-called 'problems' you have identified. 
• The ultimate 'Five Whys' questioning technique is almost a full-proof litmus test to reveal the real problems from your initial assumptions and from those that were thought to be problems.

• By the end of this step you should have at least 3-5 confident potential Design Opportunities for selection.
• Even if you end up with 1 or 2 design opportunities it is fine. Because you will be very sure you have found genuine needs to solve.

Step 5: Existing Product Research and Product Analysis

Identifying the root cause of the problem in Step 4 is important. An equally critical step next is to do an Existing Product Research to study existing products and solutions that may have already been designed for the 'problems' you identified.

• Existing product research is probably the second most important step after the Five Whys. 
• Even if you have found the root cause of the problem and that may potentially be the ideal design opportunity, there is still a possibility that you might not be aware of existing solutions that have already been designed. You do not want to end up creating stuffs that has already existed. Do you?

• Research and study all existing products that are directly or indirectly related to the problem you have identified.
• Understand and compare their functionalities.
• Seek to understand how and why they are designed they way they are and what problems do they solve.
• If you discovered that solutions for the problem already existed, you can still transform that into a design challenge to design and create a better one. 
• But before you do that, you got to study every possible existing solution in the market.

• Do Product Analysis on them to identify all the features and functionalities, the good and the bad points and their 'hidden' potentials.
• The P.M.I. technique can be used here.
• 'Hidden' potentials refer to possible 'functionalities' that the products could have done to cater to the problem better but is have not yet realized as a designed feature in the existing solutions you have studied. If you find 'hidden' potentials they are probably the most valuable Design Opportunities you can ever find.

Step 6: Selecting Design Opportunities using 'Benefits' as Criterion for Selection

• Finally we arrived here. You've got a few Design Opportunites now. How do you go about selecting the best one for your coursework?
• One way is to make a list of 'benefits' for each one of them. 
• Assuming if a solution is found, what are the benefits and who benefits. etc. 
• Then compare the benefits and select the one that benefits the most people.
• In other words, you want to compare the 'catchment area' of the benefits. Does this solution only benefit me? Him or Her? Or does it benefit a wider group of people? A family? A society or community? The neighbourhood? The nation? Or internationally?
• The Design Opportunity that has the widest 'catchment area' should be the winner.
• But also bear in mind time, ability and technological feasibility. That means even if you choose the most promising one, are you able to design and make it with your current ability, knowledge and time, and using what is available in the school to realize your product solution?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Closure... more examples...

Fig. 2: A (Fictional) Sketch showing Tourists in a Hotel and the Activities Around

 

Fig. 3: A (Fictional) Sketch showing a Bell Boy Moving Luggages

All figures 1, 2 and 3 can be used as practice for the six steps described in this post.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now go and plan where to go for your observations or to gather photographs for identifying Design Opportunities.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------