Video reflection : What is a design?

People always wondering “what is a design?” “What is a good design?”. Bill Moggridge gave a concise summary about design in his speech, “Design is everything.” Design appears everywhere in people’s daily life, a smart handle of a pinchers is a design; a great building is an architecture design; a stylish clothes is a fashion design…Moggridge mentioned about National design awards, in order to giving us a sense of design, and showing examples of good design. For example, Frank Gehry, He designed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The clever use of curve makes the building seems modern, even it was established in 1997. In the speech, Moggridge also gave some examples of bad design. For instance, in Japan people can even buy a drink using the I-mode service. However, this takes 30 minutes to buy a drink. There will be only few of people would like to use this service, because nobody has patient to wait 30 minutes just buy a drink. The designer didn’t understand the design process, and they didn’t figure out people’s needs. As a designer, we should understand people. Basing on people’s needs, we can create some new products, which are useful for people, and user will feel pleasure to use. Moggridge said about an innovation framework, it includes people, business and technology. For example, for the engineering research, they will start with technology, and then look for business position and type of people intend to buy it. For business man, they will start with their business point view, and then technology and people. For a designer, one of the most significant thing is they will think different point of view to understand different people’s desire. Such as: older people; young teenage, people with different ethic; people with different cultural background. A good design is to meet user’s wants, let the process experience pleasurable and gratification. As Miggridge said: “A good design for some disabilities, also is a good design for everybody.” This also refers to the Universal design, which is a popular topic now. Besides, in the speech, Miggridge also said about sustainable design. Environmental friendly material becomes designer’s love, such as a new material: Greensulate, organic insulation material made of Mycelium, this can instead of polystyrene. As an industrial designer, we need to think about sustainable product, like the project upcycling we did in Studio 1. We need to use paper to create a lamp. Design can be a tiny thing around our life, however, the process of designing a good product is a long way, and we need to learn, look, ask and try.