IDEATION
Now comes (arguably) the most designy part of the process. After collating all the research data it's time to get the pens, rulers and paper out. The Ideation part of a project is when I need to be creative and think of what this product is. What does it look like? How does it work?
Mind mapping can be useful during this stage, but I prefer to clear a space, turn the music up and just draw. This always gets my creative juices flowing and ultimately leads to a better design.
Once a collection of possible ways this product could work/should look has been created I start to narrow the ideas down to what are feasible or could be the best approach.
Using Photoshop and marker pens I then give the selected designs a 3D presence in order to make the final decision about which design to take forward.
DEVELOPMENT
The development phase is the meaty part of the design process. It includes aspects such as Technical Drawings, Material Research, Prototype making, FMEA, Bill of Materials, CAD modelling and the list goes on and on.
This stage is what makes the product come to life. You take the idea generated from ideation and start breaking it down so that you can beging making working prototypes for testing. Its easy to go into a workshop and make any old chair. But what if that chair has a certain hinge? How does that hinge work? What materials will it be made of? How would you go about making this in industry? What type of wood do you use? What are the measurements of that chair?
Questions like these have to be asked and then answered with detail in order to make a not on safe, but usable product.
RESEARCH
Before any drawing, material selection or CAD designing can begin you need to know what the product is and why it is needed. The research phase of a project allows myself to gain a key insight into the mind of a target user for the particular brief. In order to fully grasp what the users wants an array of research methods are used. These include Literature Reviews, Focus Groups, Affinity Diagrams, Personas, Image Boards, Design Ethnography, Observation, Interviews to name but a few. All of these methods allow me to create a User Requirement Specification so that before any time is wasted I know what the product should include and how it needs to be presented. Without research, there is no product.
DESIGNING
THIS IS A CHANCE FOR ME TO SHOW YOU HOW I WORK.
LAUNCH
Now that I have created and polished of a brand new prototype how do I sell this product? The Launch phase looks at making the product you have made marketable.
Aspects include Logo Design, Brochure Design, Costings, Packaging, Posters and Exhibitions Stands.
If you don't have the right marketing then even the best products will fail. The main point to get across to the potential buyers are what this product does and why it's better than the other competing products out there.
Once the product has been successfully launch it's time to start the whole process again with a brand new problem area and brief!