Design Vocab

Iteration

designing things in phases each phase building on the last untill the desired result is acheived.

Design iteration

Iteration employed during the Design stage by repeating analysis and prototyping steps.

Developement Iteration

Iteration that happens during the development stage

• not good

  • expensive

  • happens because things get overlooked in the design stage

Two types of Iteration

• Design Iteration

• Development Iteration

Prototyping

Creating mockups or mini models to explore different variations and ideas of a project

Three Types of Prototyping

• Concept Prototyping

• Throwaway Prototyping

• Evolutionary Prototyping

Concept Prototyping

Exploring Ideas for a design

ex. Sketching, storyboard

Throwaway Prototyping

building a model that is designed to be thrown out after the information needed from it is gathered

ex. 3d printing a cheap mockup of a design to test if parts fit together

Evolutionary Prototyping

The initial prototype is built upon and changed until it becomes the final product

different than throwaway where the prototypes get discarded

Saticficing

choosing a satisfactory solution over an optimal solution when trying to solve a problem.

Three Types of Problems to use satisficing

1. complex problems

2. time limited problems

3. problems when good enough is good enough or better than a perfect solution

   • know value perceptions

   • mindful of design resources

   • if an imperfect solution isn’t costly

Ackoffs Law

its better to do the right things wrong than the wrong things right

• prioritize strategy over execution

Pareto principle

80% of outcomes are the result of 20% of causes

• ex. 20% of features are used 80% of the time

• use to focus resources and determine the importance of elements in a design

Affordance

the physical characteristic of something the determines how it works vs how its used

• products preform well when affordances are good and intuitive

• ex. push door with push bar indicates to push the door vs handle which is more unclear

• should not need signs or instructions to tell user how to use product it should be perceptable

  • pill bottles have bad affordability on purpose to keep kids out

constraint

limiting the actions that can be preformed to simplify use and prevent error

two types of constraint

physical constraint

psychological constraint

physical constraint

limits physical motion of an object

• paths

• axes

• barriers

psychological constraint

limits actions by leveraging the way people perceive and think about the world (using peoples preconceived notions)

three types of psychological constraints

symbols

• icons, labels, sound

conventions

• common understanding of how things work based on tradition (red means stop)

mapping

• things are perceived to be more related when they closer together

Mental model

an idea of how something will work based on looking at at

• influenced by past experience

2 types of mental models

• how systems work

• how people interact with systems

Cost benefit

analysis that determines if something is worth it by weighing the perceived cost and perceived benefits

• goal is to make a design that consumers perceive to be valuable at a cost that they are willing to pay for that value

Root cause

the problem that cause all of the other problems

• use the 5 whys technique to find the root cause

• be careful of circular reasoning

Play Prefrences

tendency for male children and female children to like different kids of play

• males prefer hunting, weapons, fighting, angular shapes, object movement

• females prefer nurturing, aesthetics, color, round shapes, babies, interpersonal interaction

• consider these when designing products for kids

Kano model

Model for understanding customer needs and then prioritizing design features accordingly

• as features become more common they move down in the model (delighter becomes performance, performance becomes threshold) because they become expected

3 key features under the Kano model

• Delighter features

• performance features

• threshold features

Delighter features

• create surprise or delight

• customers didn’t know they wanted them

Performance features

• sought out by customers

• researched and compared between brands

• makes a product competetive

Threshold features

• assumed to be present

• basic and fundamental to the product