Design Strategies
Overview
Ask twenty students to design a new chair and you will get twenty chairs. Four legs, a seat, a back, some variation in the shape of the back. Not one of them decided to have four legs; they all simply drew what a chair looks like, and by the time the pencil touched the paper the interesting decisions had already been made by somebody else, years ago. That is design fixation, it is the most common failure in this subject, and the whole of this lesson is a set of tools for escaping it.
The specification names five strategies that can be applied when generating imaginative and creative design ideas: collaboration, user centred design, a systems approach, iterative design and avoiding design fixation. It then asks how you explore and develop your own ideas using an iterative process of sketching, modelling, testing and evaluation of your work to improve outcomes. This is designing and making principles content, examined in Section C of Paper 1, where collaboration alone was worth six marks, and it is also the topic the design and make task's criterion for generating design ideas is written around.
Objectives
- Generate imaginative and creative design ideas using a range of different design strategies
- How different strategies can be applied, including:
- collaboration
- user centred design
- a systems approach
- iterative design
- avoiding design fixation.
- Explore and develop their own ideas
- How this can be done using an iterative process including:
- sketching
- modelling
- testing
- evaluation of their work to improve outcomes.
Mind map
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Lesson Note
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Lesson Evaluation
Congratulations on completing the lesson on Design Strategies. Now that youve explored the key concepts and ideas, its time to put your knowledge to the test. This section offers a variety of practice questions designed to reinforce your understanding and help you gauge your grasp of the material.
You will encounter a mix of question types, including multiple-choice questions, short answer questions, and essay questions. Each question is thoughtfully crafted to assess different aspects of your knowledge and critical thinking skills.
Use this evaluation section as an opportunity to reinforce your understanding of the topic and to identify any areas where you may need additional study. Don't be discouraged by any challenges you encounter; instead, view them as opportunities for growth and improvement.
- Which design strategy involves working in repeated loops of exploring, creating and evaluating? A. Collaboration B. Iterative design C. A systems approach D. User centred design Answer: B
- A designer produces eight ideas that are all variations of the same shape. This is an example of A. collaboration. B. design fixation. C. a systems approach. D. user centred design. Answer: B
- Which one of the following best describes user centred design? A. Asking the client for approval of the final design B. Involving the users throughout the process and letting their input change the design C. Designing the product to be manufactured cheaply D. Dividing the product into input, process and output blocks Answer: B
- Which strategy makes it easiest to replace one component without redesigning the whole product? A. Collaboration B. Avoiding design fixation C. A systems approach D. Market research Answer: C
- In the iterative process, which activity is intended to reveal what a drawing hides? A. Sketching B. Modelling C. Costing D. Marketing Answer: B
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Work through these questions in the app
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