Gunnar, Daved, GK, et al,
My experience in engineering design is both similar and different. The
students, having had almost all the creativity beat out of them by years of
boring but essential (in engineering) analysis, tend to want to stick to the
brief like glue. In industry - at least here in Canada - there remains a
huge tendency to take the requirements spec (our version of 'the brief') as
a legally binding contract. The bigger the product (e.g. planes, expensive
robots, nuclear plants), the more legally binding the requirements spec
becomes. I was witness to one case where requirements engineers were
arguing about where to spec the location of some Big Red Indicator Light in
the cockpit of a tram, without ever having considered that the tram's driver
might be colour blind.
However, in consumer products (e.g. toys, home electronics, etc) the brief
tends to be either highly overspecified (for things like the chips that make
your mobile phone work) or highly underspecified (for the shell, UI, etc).
I personally grossly underspecify design problems that I give my students,
so that they are essentially "forced" to think through the "brief." While
they tend to start the project with uncomprehending stares, they do realize
not too long thereafter that there is a lot of exploration that can be done,
much to the benefit of their final design.
I also note the relationship between specifying things and what we tend to
call co-evolution of design problems and their solutions. Every design
decision made, when combined with a set of initial requirements, causes new
requirements to be identified. For instance, deciding that an automobile
has either an IC engine or a fuel cell for power significantly changes all
kinds of requirements. I think this is a feature of engineering design that
may not be often seen outside engineering, but I could be completely wrong
about that.
Cheers.
Fil
2009/9/21 Swanson, Gunnar <[log in to unmask]>
> David,
>
> I largely agree with your answer to GK but there are structural issues that
> enforce traditional disciplinary approaches. In the case of the wayfinding
> system in Minnesota, the students were presented with a situation that they
> already knew fairly well and left to define what sort of a solution they
> would model. Is that a brief, as such? They were not, however, in control of
> the team so were strongly guided by who was in the room. It's the flip side
> of the old adage--Go to an architect with a problem and you'll get a
> building as a solution.
>
> Usually the team isn't so diverse. My graphic design classes are full of
> graphic design students. That's no surprise, but it does limit the way
> design is approached, for better and for worse.
>
> I would be interested in pointers from GK or anyone on solutions. What
> specific things can design educators do to start crawling out of our
> presumptive collective hole?
>
> Gunnar
> ----------
> Gunnar Swanson Design Office
> 1901 East 6th Street
> Greenville, North Carolina 27858
> USA
>
> [log in to unmask]
> +1 252 258 7006
>
> at East Carolina University:
> +1 252 328 2839
> [log in to unmask]
>
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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