There are no hard and fast rules for achieving success in design, but there are principles of good practice. Here are some of my feelings on the subject, some thoughts and observations ranging from A to Z:
Aesthetics. How something looks is always important. This does not mean that it has to be a work of art, just that it should look appropriate to its function.
Bugs. It is always better to assume that a design contains a bug than to believe that it does not. A designer should never check a design without having a supply of insecticide handy.
Constraints. There should always be strings attached to a design idea; they keep it from floating off into irrelevance.
Design. This is the most creative and most fundamental aspect of engineering. Other engineering activities, including engineering science, should be in service to design.
Economics. The self-made American engineer Arthur M. Wellington (1847-1895), in his book on the economic theory of the location of railways, defined engineering as "the art of doing well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion."
Failure. This thing that designers want most to avoid should always be first and foremost in their mind. Otherwise, how could they design against it?
Glass Part Full. It has been said that engineers view a partly filled glass neither as optimists nor as pessimists: They simply see the glass as improperly designed.
Just as really attractive people are able to usually get the benefit of doubt, so too do attractive devices have the user trying to look for what is right rather than what is wrong. Should not be the case, but it is.
Not long ago, I judged a student engineering project at my alma matter. One team of students had the task of coming up with a solution to a manufacturing problem. (This was a "real world" project sponsored by a local company). The solution they ultimately came up with, I thought, was a pretty good one.
Prior to hitting upon this solution, they came up with a number of other interesting ideas; however, these ideas were unworkable within the constraints of the manufacturing process.
When I asked the students about some of these rejected ideas, their response was basically, "Well, it was a good idea, but the company didn't like it for some reason, so we had to come up with something else." They didn't seem to be willing or able to think critically about the constraints of the process - or why something which might otherwise be a brilliant idea might not work in a given context.
Given that being able to think intelligently about the constraints of a system is one of the most important outcomes of an engineering education, I graded the students down for this.
(For what it's worth, they won the competition anyway).
This slimming down the design has been a slow process for me to get a handle on. I will still at times go for a beefy look just because I want that look and not because the added strength or weight is important to the final function.
"Failure. This thing that designers want most to avoid should always be first and foremost in their mind. Otherwise, how could they design against it?"
I will allow that this includes 'Failure to design saftey in first'... Always at the top of my list.
The comparison between over-design and over-eating is appropriate. There are hundreds of wristwatches, mobile phones and even PCs that are larded with extra features and software that seem to serve little purpose other than to cause unnecessary complexity. Someone needs to offer a class, "Slim Fast Product Design 101."
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