We all know that all the things are designed to meet human needs. even our plastic water bottles are designed in such a way that it could withstand huge amount of force and pressure. We know that designing may seems easy but when we really do hands on designing, it starts to get tedious, stressful and takes huge amount of time. That is the reason why designing is not done by one person but many designers working together. Some may disagree with the preveious sentence but if you look at the efficiency and most of the areas of designing processes, we can easily announce the winner.
So how does engineers design something? The picture below shows basic designing processes that are used by engineers commonly.
To begin with, we first have to identify the main problem. What do we want to change and why do we need something to be designed. If we do not have the basic things done, we may eventually give up designing when we face a challenging problem.
Then, it comes to the researching for the needs or problem. We may think that we know everything but we are not Einstein and even he do not know everything. Through this process, we are able to know basic concepts, history, background and details that we never heard through researching and reading up on other people’s ideas and stories. Hopefully, we may have some kind of inspiration through some catalysts.
Thirdly, it comes to the process that develops solutions for the problem. This is the point where it may literally takes loads of time depending of the situations but mostly because of the brainstorming. No matter how long it takes, one of the most important thing is that we have to let all the ideas flow smoothly even though you may think they are ridiculous. Every ideas may combine to form an engineering masterpiece. For example, it was a ridiculous idea for someone to design a phone without the number pad. However, nowadays we all carry a phone with only couple of buttons.
The next step is when you start striking off or rejecting the ridiculous ideas after looking at the feasibility– Dermining which solutions are best. This is one of the most important processes because we have to analyze and put all our heads together to determine the most suitable solutions. Sometimes, we may have to mix some of the ideas generated previously to make it more suitable.
The next two steps are basically construction and testing the solutions’ prototypes. Through this process, we are able to evaluate our design then, finalize the design. Because our brains are not that great to visualize or simulate possible situations accounting different vairables.
The last process is communicating the solutions. Most of the engineers work for others. That is to design and meet the main purpose of the customers. One of the most criteria is to meet the problems but also satisfy them. That could be done through communications. After going through all these processes, we are now ready to start building things!
In a nutshell, this is like a guideline. It is one of the easiest way to design something for both beginning engineers or even professional designers. However, in my opinion, we should not be constricted and stuck at this narrow minded that other designing process should not be done and they are wrong. This is just a guideline to make the designing process easier, not a law. And hopefully design something that is sustainable and last the longest!
Reference:
http://www.themetroschool.org/assets/images/centers/design_flow.png
