Design Concepts & Concerns© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad
11111AEP Bridge SemesterAEP Bridge SemesterAEP Bridge SemesterAEP Bridge SemesterAEP Bridge SemesterNational Institute of DesignNational Institute of DesignNational Institute of DesignNational Institute of DesignNational Institute of DesignPaldi, Ahmedabad - 380 007.
16 October 1997
DesignDesignDesignDesignDesignVisualisationVisualisationVisualisationVisualisationVisualisation
M P RanjanM P RanjanM P RanjanM P RanjanM P RanjanDesign is a responsibleand creative activitythat aims tounderstand humanneeds and aspirationsin order to generateeffective alternatesolutions that canresolve these needs. Byits very nature theprocess of design dealswith extremelycomplexinterrelationships ofissues and concerns ofthe user, theenvironment and thewell being of society insocial, technological and economicrealms. The designer is therefore in thearena of generating scenarios andspecifications and offering these forselection and decision within theframework of professionalcontributions offered to a wide varietyof clients. The nature and complexity ofdifferent design tasks may vary to agreat extent. Some tasks aretechnologically complex but mostdesign tasks deal with other realmsof complexity in the social,economic or psychologicaldimensions of users and thecommunity that supports theconduct and performance of thetask.Design has therefore moved frombeing an individual enterprise tothat of being a team effort with avariety of members being drawnfrom a large number of diversedisciplines, the selection dependingon the nature of the task and ourcurrent understanding of the same.Professional design has the furthercomplexity of beingconducted in an extremelycompetitive business andeconomic landscape where thedemands of time and qualityare stringent and isaccompanied by a very highdegree of risk. These pressureshave mandated a number ofcritical changes in theprocesses that designers andtheir collaborators employ inthe conduct of the designprogramme. Design hasborrowed work strategiesfrom all formal disciplineswhere effective approachesand methodologies have beeninnovated and developedthrough experience andresearch. The morphology of thedesign task has therefore become acomplex set of iterations thatrevisit the stages of defining andredefining the task leading toimproved understanding of thetask itself. In this process severalalternate scenarios are developedand examined critically and thismay lead to restatement of the veryproblem itself.Design thinking is distinctly differentfrom scientific and managementthinking styles in that the designerand the design team are willing to
Design Concepts & Concerns© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad
22222cope with a great deal of ambiguitywhile the boundaries of the designopportunity are gradually broughtinto sharp focus. The process ofrefining the understanding of thedesign task and that of generatingalternate solutions or scenarios followone another in fairly quick cycles andare mediated by interactions withreal users in many cases. The usercentered ideology adopted bydesigners in recent years hasnecessitated the creation of severalnew stages in the design process.Early concepts and prototypes areshared with users with the use ofpreliminary visualisations that arespecially conceived to permit userparticipation or facilitate userobservation to develop insights intopotential problems that are notperceptible in the normal course ofconcept development. It is theattitude of the designer that is put tocritical test in such cases where it isvery easy to slip into the mode thatthe "designer knows best" which is inthe final analysis counter productive.The designers visualisation skills andcognitive capabilities are needed tocreate new and unique solutions, butthe evaluation of each of these isdone through user mediatedprocesses that have proved to bemost effective.The designer is then called upon toinnovate appropriate representationsof the design concept in whole or inpart so that individual or groups ofusers can interact with theserepresentations and provide freshinsights into both the nature of theproblem and the suitability of thesolution. Here the challenge is todiscover and use appropriate toolsand media that are best suited to theprocess of visualisation and theprocess of evaluation. The tools and
Design Concepts & Concerns© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad© 1997 NID, Ahmedabad
33333media need to be selected with careso as to afford fluent representationof complex relationships orgeometries, form and content,structure and context that is requiredby the particular design task.Traditionally the use of a variety oftypes of drawings were the preferredmodes of visualisation used bysculptors, artists, architects anddesigners. However in recent timesmany examples of direct modelling insoft materials have been exploredwhere drawing would limit or inhibitthe perception of new and uniquepossibilities. Preferred styles ofvisualisation of individual designersmay also emerge from theirprofessional habits, degree of skillwith the tools of their trade and thecognitive modelling capabilities ofthe individual. Each design disciplineor design school may advocate certainstandards for the design students orpractitioners from their group. Tradepractices in particular industries mayalso set demands for certain standardspecifications to be followed by thedesigner in the manner in which thedesign concepts are delivered to theclient for further action and decision.Many of these standardised methodsof representation reflect thecommunication and documentationnorms of the industry or trade inquestion. Notwithstanding thesetrade practices and norms theindividual designer is always at libertyto explore their personal repertory ofmedia and skills in the early stages ofdesign visualisation when theemerging images of the externalmodels are primarily intended tocapture the fleeting cognitive mapsand scenarios that are beingiteratively explored by the designer.Such early external visualisations arebarely recognisable as coherentimages to a casual observer, howeverfor the designer they are of greatsignificance since this is perhaps thefirst stage of the dialogue betweenthe left and right hemispheres oftheir brain that is facilitated by theexternal model, howeverrudimentary. These earlyvisualisations take many forms andthese depend on the media that thedesigner may choose to employ atvarious stages of their work and thesemay be deliberately varied as a resultof experience or in an effort to openup new and unusual possibilities inresponse to the challenges of thedesign task. These externalmanifestations may be barelydiscernible doodles or smudges thatfor the designer represent a rapidlyexecuted trace of the cognitive modelthat is being continuously refined,modified and developed in thedesigners mind. While sketching and
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