ABSTRACT
Summary
Design methodology studies the way in which designs come into being, in particular the methods used for this. The design process is often based on the steps analysis-synthesis-evaluation. Reality is much more complicated and therefore such ideal schemes should always be treated with caution. Towards the end of the previous century people doing designs started giving more attention to the consumer and the market. The realisation also dawned that in the design process different products may require different approaches. For market-oriented design all kinds of new methods have been developed in which the concept ‘quality’ takes central position. There is a trend to do designing not purely individually and independently, but in an open cooperative context. All these innovations do greater justice to the intricacy of reality but they remain ideal models.
In his book What Engineers Know and How They Know It Walther Vincenti describes how the designers of planes over a process of some decades gradually learned to make use of the experience of pilots. This mainly concerned the controllability of the plane. Pilots initially wanted a machine that was not too stable, since that was easier to handle. They expressed it concisely but forcefully by saying that the plane had to be ‘stable, but not too stable’, in other words that it had to react swiftly to the controls but not so fast that it would no longer be stable. The engineers found that this was too vague to be useful for their work of designing. They were therefore inclined to ignore these statements by the pilots. The pilots were moreover not consistent in their wishes either. For piloting a plane that is not very stable takes constant attention and intervention. Initially, when all flights were comparatively short, this was not much of an obstacle. But later on when pilots were flying long hours on end, continuously adjusting the steering proved to be exhausting. The 135research done by Vincenti showed that the pilots only learned as time went by what their actual wishes were. Moreover they had the impression that their experience was hardly taken into account in the designing of planes, which one can understand seeing the attitude of the engineers.
Engineers in the meantime were completely occupied by the question which variables of the plane played a role in the relation between stability and manoeuvrability. By experiments in wind tunnels one got insight into the variables. And the designers learned to relate the variables to the different theories from mechanics and aerodynamics. Only at that stage did they once more catch sight of the wishes of the pilots which had up to then been more or less ignored. Vincenti describes how the work of a ‘mediator’ between the pilots and developers played an important part in establishing a connection between the wishes of the pilots and the technological properties of the plane. It seems that the ‘mediators’ were able to make a connection between the vague and qualitative statements by the pilots on the one hand and the carefully defined and quantitative approach of the engineers on the other hand. In this way the designers eventually reached guidelines for the design of planes that were explicitly synchronised with the wishes of the pilots.
This case study demonstrates various aspects of the design process. It becomes clear how difficult it is to take into consideration multiple factors like the possibilities and limitations of technology as well as the wishes of the pilots. Not to mention the legal regulations for planes, which are currently much more elaborate than they were in the period described by Vincenti. We also see that translating client wishes into technological properties – nowadays a precondition for design – was definitely not taken for granted. Furthermore it appears that both designers and consumers had to go through a long learning process. Pilots only learn in the course of using the planes what their wishes are, and designers only gradually learn what the relevant design parameters are. The design process is complicated; not only is knowledge applied, knowledge is also gained. Understanding exactly what happens in such a design process therefore requires careful study. Vincenti’s book is a good example of this. The branch of science that is oriented in particular towards processes as well as designs is called methodology.
Why do we have a separate chapter on design? To the (future) engineer the answer to this question stands to reason. Designing is thinking out new products and processes. Without new designs there can be no progress. The design process forms the heart of technology. Still, it is not altogether obvious why we devote a separate chapter to the design of technology. For designing has not always been a separate activity, at least not as independent as at present. In traditional technology designing and making often happened simultaneously. It was mostly one person who designed a new piece of furniture and then also made it. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there began a gradual separation between designing and making. A specialisation came about between the various core processes in technology. And science gained substantial influence on the way in which technological designs came into being. All this justifies giving specific attention to designing.
136In this chapter we will concentrate on the methodological side of designing. We look at how designers devise ways of giving materials a meaningful destination. We will pay ample attention to development ‘for the market’. We close with a critical reflection on the developments as sketched. However, we will not be looking in detail at the manner in which groups like government, universities, action groups and multinational concerns exert power and influence on the different design processes. Neither will various ethical aspects be dealt with explicitly. In Part III of the book we will return to these points. The line of approach of this chapter is mainly methodological. We will mostly be using the word ‘design’, except when using examples from the electronic industry, we will adapt to the language used in this sector and use the word ‘develop’.
