Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Reflecting on Central St. Martin's Service Design Short Course - day 2

This morning Vincenzo asked if there were any product designers on the course - I'm not one, but as I mentioned in my introductory video, always wanted to be an inventor, so stood by with interest and was invited to knock up a door wedge to keep the doors open, which I did with creativity and enthusiasm. But when I finished my wedge made from coffee-cup holders, not only was it too big to fit, but as Allan pointed out, both the doors already had handy wall-hooks to hold them open.

Moral of the story? Use research to refine the brief...

Thinking of briefs, I'm on the green team, with a client brief from Camden Council's cycle training scheme. We were asked to review a selection of design methods, and come up with a plan for researching and creating a design over the remainder of our two weeks. We came up with something based on the Design Council's double-diamond approach:

I really want to deliver something good, and I'm itching to narrow the aims of the project down to something that will be do-able but still impressive. But I have to remember that we're still in the opening, divergent, phase of the first diamond, and where I want to be is the end of the second, convergent, phase. I have to hold myself back from jumping the gun.

In other words, I have to trust the process, Francis. Use research to refine the brief...

3 comments:

golfomistico said...

That's true. One of the most useful advices I've learned from my past experience is: never jump on a solution too early!

servicejunkie said...

Your prototype door stop did not create value! Pity, I should have liked to see the exchange between you and allan...

vdmdesign said...

door stoppers or not, what we needed was an open door. double diamonds or not what we need is an effective way to explore new opportunities and converge toward working solutions. creative problem solving, here we come!!