AEP Bridge Semester conduct and performance of the

National Institute of Design task.

Paldi, Ahmedabad - 380 007.
Design has therefore moved from
being an individual enterprise to
16 October 1997
that of being a team effort with a
variety of members being drawn
Design from a large number of diverse
disciplines, the selection depending
on the nature of the task and our
Visualisation current understanding of the same.

Professional design has the further

M P Ranjan complexity of being
conducted in an extremely
Design is a responsible competitive business and
and creative activity economic landscape where the
that aims to demands of time and quality
understand human are stringent and is
needs and aspirations accompanied by a very high
in order to generate degree of risk. These pressures
effective alternate have mandated a number of
solutions that can critical changes in the
resolve these needs. By processes that designers and
its very nature the their collaborators employ in
process of design deals the conduct of the design
with extremely programme. Design has
complex borrowed work strategies
interrelationships of from all formal disciplines
issues and concerns of where effective approaches
the user, the and methodologies have been
environment and the innovated and developed
well being of society in through experience and
social, technological and economic research. The morphology of the
realms. The designer is therefore in the design task has therefore become a
arena of generating scenarios and complex set of iterations that
specifications and offering these for revisit the stages of defining and
selection and decision within the redefining the task leading to
framework of professional improved understanding of the
contributions offered to a wide variety task itself. In this process several
of clients. The nature and complexity of alternate scenarios are developed
different design tasks may vary to a and examined critically and this
great extent. Some tasks are may lead to restatement of the very
technologically complex but most problem itself.
design tasks deal with other realms
of complexity in the social, Design thinking is distinctly different
economic or psychological from scientific and management
dimensions of users and the thinking styles in that the designer
community that supports the and the design team are willing to
Design Concepts & Concerns © 1997 NID, Ahmedabad
1
cope with a great deal of ambiguity
while the boundaries of the design
opportunity are gradually brought
into sharp focus. The process of
refining the understanding of the
design task and that of generating
alternate solutions or scenarios follow
one another in fairly quick cycles and
are mediated by interactions with
real users in many cases. The user
centered ideology adopted by
designers in recent years has
necessitated the creation of several
new stages in the design process.
Early concepts and prototypes are
shared with users with the use of
preliminary visualisations that are
specially conceived to permit user
participation or facilitate user
observation to develop insights into
potential problems that are not
perceptible in the normal course of
concept development. It is the
attitude of the designer that is put to
critical test in such cases where it is
very easy to slip into the mode that
the "designer knows best" which is in
the final analysis counter productive.
The designers visualisation skills and
cognitive capabilities are needed to
create new and unique solutions, but
the evaluation of each of these is
done through user mediated
processes that have proved to be
most effective.

The designer is then called upon to

innovate appropriate representations
of the design concept in whole or in
part so that individual or groups of
users can interact with these
representations and provide fresh
insights into both the nature of the
problem and the suitability of the
solution. Here the challenge is to
discover and use appropriate tools
and media that are best suited to the
process of visualisation and the
process of evaluation. The tools and
Design Concepts & Concerns © 1997 NID, Ahmedabad
2
media need to be selected with care trade practices and norms the
so as to afford fluent representation individual designer is always at liberty
of complex relationships or to explore their personal repertory of
geometries, form and content, media and skills in the early stages of
structure and context that is required design visualisation when the
by the particular design task. emerging images of the external
models are primarily intended to
Traditionally the use of a variety of capture the fleeting cognitive maps
types of drawings were the preferred and scenarios that are being
modes of visualisation used by iteratively explored by the designer.
sculptors, artists, architects and
designers. However in recent times Such early external visualisations are
many examples of direct modelling in barely recognisable as coherent
soft materials have been explored images to a casual observer, however
where drawing would limit or inhibit for the designer they are of great
the perception of new and unique significance since this is perhaps the
possibilities. Preferred styles of first stage of the dialogue between
visualisation of individual designers the left and right hemispheres of
may also emerge from their their brain that is facilitated by the
professional habits, degree of skill external model, however
with the tools of their trade and the rudimentary. These early
cognitive modelling capabilities of visualisations take many forms and
the individual. Each design discipline these depend on the media that the
or design school may advocate certain designer may choose to employ at
standards for the design students or various stages of their work and these
practitioners from their group. Trade may be deliberately varied as a result
practices in particular industries may of experience or in an effort to open
also set demands for certain standard up new and unusual possibilities in
specifications to be followed by the response to the challenges of the
designer in the manner in which the design task. These external
design concepts are delivered to the manifestations may be barely
client for further action and decision. discernible doodles or smudges that
Many of these standardised methods for the designer represent a rapidly
of representation reflect the executed trace of the cognitive model
communication and documentation that is being continuously refined,
norms of the industry or trade in modified and developed in the
question. Notwithstanding these designers mind. While sketching and

Design Concepts & Concerns © 1997 NID, Ahmedabad

3
doodling are used extensively by the
designer for this early stage of
visualisation there are a number of
other media that are used.

One characteristic of the media that is

in common is that it is very fluid and overall concept to be either viable or
has soft features as if to reflect the interesting. Thus the designer moves
fuzzy nature of the cognitive model from the general to the particular,
at this early stage of design from the macro to the micro level of
exploration and development. These observation of the cognitive model
external traces and markings on that is constantly being refined and
paper or soft materials provide the elaborated without freezing on any
designer with the multilevel and one specific alternative. Usually the
internodal dialogue between the two designer defers decision on specific
brain hemispheres that is critical for attributes and leaves some difficult
creative reinterpretations of details in an ambiguous state in a
possibilities and for pattern deliberate effort to obtain clarity of
recognition of complex new the larger patterns and relationships
relationships that may have been of the solution before solving
studied in isolated instances but that particular structural, formal or
needs to fall together in the process production problems.
of design synthesis. Design decisions
are made as a sequence of choices In the user centered design ideology
exercised by the designer at the time adopted by many designers and by
of articulation of the external model. several design led companies, the
early prototypes and external models
The design visualisation progresses by are prepared expressly with the
the designer creating a series of intention that they be shared by
images or models, each an groups of users in a variety if real use
embodiment of a particular set of settings so that they can provide
characteristics as determined by the critical insights into the strengths and
data available, the analysis of the task weaknesses of a particular design
and the user or as perceived by the solution. Numerous iterations are
designer at that particular point of made, each exploring one or more
time in the design process. This very dimensions of the design opportunity
act of articulation brings new insights and these are documented so that
and may shift the direction of the design team can develop a
exploration or launch the designer conviction about the particular
into a search for a particular detail directions to be taken in each case.
that may be critical in making the

Design Concepts & Concerns © 1997 NID, Ahmedabad

4
These external models begin as very is centered on the potters wheel and
abstract and fuzzy representations the material is turned at a suitable
and these are gradually refined and speed. The potter applies her hands
elaborated till more concrete models to the rotating clay and observes the
replace earlier representations. These transformation of the form with each
models, when drawing and sketching application of pressure. The form of
are used as a route for visualisation, the pot emerges as a result of her
grow out of thumbnail sketches, subtle manipulations. The feedback
doodles, scale drawings, orthographic to the potter is not merely a visual
drawings, breadboard models for appreciation of its form, but with the
details of construction or eyes closed, she can feel the shape
performance of mechanisms, scale and size of the emerging pot, at one
models and renderings for form point too tall and at another too
review, full scale mock-ups and wide, leading to a corrective pressure
fabricated prototypes where ever on the tips of her fingers or at the
possible. base of her palm.

It may be useful to look at a few Each application of pressure and the

examples of such visualisation in result thereof is a result of years of
action. Let us look at a potter as a fine training and experience and
metaphor for the process of early each pot is a unique expression of a
visualisation. An artist, designer or design intention that is revealed to
studio potter, working at the wheel the designer in the progressive
and making the model of the clay iteration of its making. The designer
pot works would have
with clay in a had the
series of chance to see,
iterations to feel and
produce one evaluate
particular pot. numerous
A lump of intermediate
prepared clay stages before

Design Concepts & Concerns © 1997 NID, Ahmedabad

5
a design and aesthetic decision is The designer lives with the changing
frozen in the shape of the finished model through numerous
pot.. If the making of a pot is taken refinements and critiques from users
as a metaphor for the early stage of and colleagues. In team mediated
design visualisation, then we see that processes it becomes critical that all
a very flexible medium is manipulated members of the team are clued in to
through numerous iterations before the current state of the model and
the designer moves on to another their individual contributions are
approach or attempt to resolve the then directed at solving particular
various conflicting variables of the aspects of the design task that their
task at hand. The cognitive model special skill or expertise enable. It is
held by the designer too gets important to generate these external
enriched through each iteration. models in a suitable media. Sketching
has been used by many architects as a
Each new "pot" adds to the designers means of capturing complex concepts
experience of the various scenarios that need to be clarified and
that were explored and it helps form developed through numerous
some deep bonds with preferred iterations before communicative
directions especially if these are drawings or scale models can be
confirmed by the interactions with made. The works of architects Reima
users who are able to see for the first Pietila and Louis I Kahn are well
time the "products" of the designers documented examples of great
cognitive explorations. In this process design vision being captured through
the cognitive model gets a series of fuzzy sketches leading to
progressively detailed and is far more the articulation of some of their
complex and detailed than any finest works of architecture in India and
representation. The designers elsewhere. Kahn designed the Indian
cognitive model is rich in detail and is Institute of Management campus at
instantly recalled under varying Ahmedabad and his early sketches
circumstances of the user and speak volumes of the highly refined
environmental conditions. The cognitive model that he carried about in
designer sees the solution by day and his head long before a single brick was
by night, feels the air flow around its laid at the campus in Ahmedabad.
contours and can sense the soft feel Similarly the Finish Embassy at New
of the flexible material of a handle Delhi emerged from some very fuzzy
even if it is only in the mind at this markings and doodles in pen and ink
stage. and dry pastels from the experienced
hands of Pietila. The key decisions are
made in the mind's eye and the external
markings at this stage are but a trace of
the rich cognitive model where some
critical details or proportions are
expressed as a slight stress in the
quality of a line of the thumbnail sketch
if you can call it a sketch.

Like foot prints in the sand on a

crowded beach these fleeting
impressions are captured on paper (or
Design Concepts & Concerns © 1997 NID, Ahmedabad
6
clay) by the designer in an attempt to oversight.
clarify and elaborate the form,
structure, performance, content and There are many dimensions to design
context of the design solution, all in a visualisation and it is this special
single moment of design synthesis, capacity of the designer to generate
only to be reviewed and revised as visible and tangible scenarios to
the design task progresses to its complex needs that makes the
formal conclusion. For the designer profession different from the
these markings are very personal and managers who also develop strategies
memorable just as for the person and scenarios for action in their own
strolling on the beach his very own way. However these are rarely
footprints are clearly distinguished expressed in visual form but in the
from those of all the others, which form of feasibility reports and verbal
for him is mere noise. Very few specifications. It is then the designers
task to give form and
expression to these
strategies and the
particular embodiment of
the design strategy is
captured and the image
produced carries with it
messages of a complex
nature be it fashion,
reliability or meaning to a
set of users or the
community.

design tasks are documented to Source for Illustrations

retain some of these moments of
breakthroughs that are achieved on Pietila: Intermediate zones in Modern
the back of an envelope or through a Architecture, Museum of Finnish
Architecture, Helsinki, 1985.
little doodle on the corner of a large
drawing that just lets all the complex Leonardo: The Artist, Anna Maria Brizio et al,
variables fall neatly in place for the Hutchinson, London, 1980
designer to know that the solution is
near at hand. The excitement of the Leonardo: The Scientist, Carlo Zammattio et
al, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York,
moment is sharp and intense
1980
particularly after many attempts were
frustrated by the critical needs of the
problem at hand. Sometimes the ~
designer too is unprepared to see the
radical proposal that has emerged
from the subconscious just as
Leonardo Da Vinci and his colleagues
ignored the perfect sketch of a
bicycle drawn on one of his sheets.
Mankind invented or should we say
reinvented the bicycle four hundred
years later as a result of this
Design Concepts & Concerns © 1997 NID, Ahmedabad
7