How something small be a big design concept?
Categories: concepts, design, graduate school, learning
Today, Marty reminded us not to become a team stuck in a corner on one side of the room, with all their design concepts closely surrounding them in a tight space. In order to think of “big design concepts” look beyond our surroundings and towards the far corner of the room.
For our very first set of design concepts, our team was thinking along these lines. So we came up with concepts that were a bit our there, interesting, and “big”. Big in a sense that they were out of the ordinary. After further reviewing our concepts using the PRICiPleS design framework, we realized that we were too ambitious trying to solve everything and had to rethink our ideas. Then we developed concepts with a narrower focus but it seemed that it lacked the “big idea” factor. So back to the whiteboard again…
After class the words Marty said stuck in my head, “by narrowing the scope people think something too small is whimpy. Show you can do something small and do it well.” Maybe I’m interpreting this wrong, but I’m having difficulty seeing the connection on doing something small and well and it also being a “big design concept”. It sounds confusing to me. How can something small be a big design concept?
5 Comments, Comment or Ping
Kevin Makice
The big concept is the one that best addresses a real need in a way that can be implemented in the most effective way.
A big concept doesn’t need to be a big step in the evolution of mankind. Big steps are difficult to design and difficult to adopt, but small steps are accessible. Rather than taking a technological deterministic view of the world, where your intervention changes everything, think of the future you envision as an emergent property of a log of big concepts making small steps.
Oct 31st, 2007
Marty Siegel
or a lot of small steps, each done extremely well, as successive approximations to a bigger idea. Of course when we start we may not know or fully understand that big idea. However with each successive step, we learn and thus our path will not likely be a straight line to a vision but something that twists and turns, yet gets us to something truly great along the way.
Nov 1st, 2007
Brandon
I agree with you Jason, I had struggled with this idea a bit also. Looking back on it though, I realized what Marty put into words just above. Nothing great was every made with a laser line to the goal. Typically, great changes in mankind were made with successive steps along the way to something great. The small steps towards these great goals tended to create large impacts that resonate through history, and can be implemented towards other paths then the main goal. So each small step was just as important as the main goal, if not more.
I guess what I am trying to say, and feel free to put me in my place if I am wrong, the iterations towards a goal create the ripples that eventually build into a tidal wave. Small steps can build to great ideas.
Nov 6th, 2007
seanconnolly
I’ve got another take on the focus small:
When Will Odom ran the lab, he and other mentors spoke about their projects last year. In particular, Will and Dave Roedl’s projects seemed like the fell on opposite ends of the ‘big’ spectrum to me.
Will’s project focused micro-small. They focused on helping the activities director at a retirment home. How much smaller could you be? ONE guy at one place. They helped maximize his fuel & trips consumption, so that this one person in this one role at this one retirement home could maximize his fuel efficiency. That felt small.
Yet…
Having done the research, their argument showed that there are in fact MANY retirement homes in the country. Furthermore, many of these retirment homes have activities directors that would benefit from the same solution they manifested for their one. Therfore, by picking a target that was micro-small, and, by customizing to the needs of that individual… and then showing there were MANY of individuals in that same exact role — they argued that there one-person design could scale to fit any other number of people who fulfill a similar role.
In an exact opposite approach (i.m.h.o), Dave’s group-research led them to find one of the largest, singular, ‘targetable’ user groups in transportation — school buses! School buses are everywhere. And so, by customizing an efficacy program for ’school bus drivers’, and, reducing ’school bus drivers’ environmental impact by only a small percent, they were able to argue that their design had a big impact on the problem space.
Two different approaches (it seemed, to me — who knows how these things happen in reality?): first approach — find the smallest common role, and prove that aiding this small group (or individual) scales wildly; or
Second approach - find the largest identifiable group, and effect some small change on that.
Come to think of it - it sounds like math: where is the smallest common denominator, and, the greatest common factor?
Nov 6th, 2007
qazedctgb
The idea of completing a small and task and doing it well, while incorporating a “big design concept” makes more sense if some examples can be applied.
Dr. Francis Crick and Dr. James D. Watson on breaking the DNA code: The task ahead of the two pioneers in microbiology and genetics was a small one but of great difficulty. Unlocking the genome was a significant impact in the field of microbiology, but no one could forsee the impact it would have in other fields and professions.
Steve Jobs and the I-pod: Developing a device that would allow users to customize their songs to in any order they please was an arduous task. Walkmans and Mp3 players existed before the I-pod but they did not address the challenges users had with them: the feel of the device, the weight, the interface, the information retrieval system-accessing the music, its storage capacity, the color of the interface and outer shell, etc. By addressing a need of users wanting a single device to carry their personal music collection, then the other challenges could be tackled.
-Eric Drewski
Dec 15th, 2007
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