UNIT-I

DESIGN: A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the
implementation of an activity or process, or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a
prototype, product or process. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design.
ELEMENTS OF DESIGN:
The elements of design are the fundamental aspects of any visual design which include shape, color,
space, form, line, value, and texture.
Graphic designers use the elements of design to create an image that can convey a certain mood, draw the
eye in a certain direction, or evoke a number of feelings.
Line: Line refers to the way that two points in space are connected. Whether they’re horizontal lines,
diagonal lines, or vertical lines, lines can help direct the eye toward a certain point in your composition.
Shape: In its most basic form, a shape is a two-dimensional area that is surrounded by an outline. There
are three types of shapes: organic shapes, geometric shapes, abstract shapes
Color: Color helps establish a mood for your composition. When light waves strike an object and reflect
back to the optic nerve in a human’s eyes, the sensation they perceive is called color.
Form: Form pertains to the way that a shape or physical configuration occupies space.
Texture: Texture is one of the elements of design that is used to represent how an object appears or feels.
Tactile texture is a physical sense of touch, whether it’s rough, smooth, or ribbed.
Size and scale: These elements go hand in hand. They are responsible for bringing balance, proportion,
and contrast to every design. Size refers to the actual dimensions of a particular element, while the scale is
its relation to the original value, and proportion refers to the relation of all present elements to both size
and scale.
Direction: Direction is an element of design that establishes the general mood and atmosphere. It creates
the illusion that there is movement within the design.
Examples of Elements

Principles of Design:
 Principle in this field refers to the ways elements may be manipulated to create a work of art.
 The principles and elements of design both carry the same weight in executing an effective piece.
If you disregard the principles, then you have a visual piece that lacks a story.
 These principles are guidelines that are used to visually communicate the ideas represented by the
elements.
PROXIMITY: Proximity refers to the way in which elements are grouped together so that the attention
of the viewer or reader is redirected to the various parts of the visually designed message. It is the
nearness of one element to another. Proximity provides a focal point, which is the center of interest or
activity.
BALANCE: Balance is the distribution of the various visual weights of the objects used in the visual
presentation, the proper combination and harmony of colors used, the tone and refinement of visual
texture, and the appropriate use of space. Balance provides stability and structure in a particular design.
Balance in design is similar to the concept of balance in Physics.
ALIGNMENT: This particular principle refers to the order and organization between and among the
elements. When elements are aligned, they create a visual connection with each other that communicates
a story.
REPETITION: Repetition may be overwhelming, but not in design. Repetition is visually appealing
when used to put emphasis on particular elements and can effectively grab the attention of a reader.
Repetition strengthens the design by connecting individual elements together.
CONTRAST: Contrast is defined as “the difference in visual properties that makes one object
distinguishable from other objects.” Contrast is often used to emphasize key elements in specific design
projects. Contrast is used to make elements stand out and grab attention. Contrast, like proximity, creates
a focal point in a visual design.
In essence, design thinking:

• Revolves around a deep interest to understand the people for whom we design products and
services.
• Helps us observe and develop empathy with the target users.
• Enhances our ability to question: in design thinking you question the problem, the assumptions
and the implications.
• Proves extremely useful when you tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown
• Involves ongoing experimentation through sketches, prototypes, testing and trials of new
concepts and ideas.
HISTORY OF DESIGN THINKING: We can say that this massive global event fundamentally altered
the way we access management, production, and industrial design in the modern world. Let's go through
the history of design thinking decade by decade and see how the story progresses from here.
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge
assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. Involving five
phases—Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test—it is most useful to tackle problems that are ill-
defined or unknown.
Stage 1 in the Design Thinking Process: Empathise with Your Users

Design Thinking cannot begin without a deeper understanding of the people you are designing for. In
order to gain those insights, it is important for you as a design thinker to empathize with the people
you’re designing for so that you can understand their needs, thoughts, emotions and motivations.
Developing Empathy towards People
The first stage (or mode) of the Design Thinking process involves developing a sense
of empathy towards the people you are designing for, to gain insights into what they need, what they
want, how they behave, feel, and think, and why they demonstrate such behaviors, feelings, and thoughts
when interacting with products in a real-world setting.

You have a range of options, including:

Observing real users. Ask these questions to shift from concrete observations to abstract motivations:
“What?” – You detail your observations.
“How?” – You analyze how users do things (e.g., with difficulty).
“Why?” – You make educated guesses about the users’ emotions and motivations.

Conducting photo- and/or video-based studies in users’ natural environments or sessions

with the design team or consultants – You record these users while they try to solve an issue you
propose to resolve with your design.

Personal photo/video journals – You ask users to record their own experiences with approaching a
problem. These may capture their pain points more accurately.
Interviewing users – Your team uses brainstorming to first find the right questions to ask in a
generally structured and natural flow. Then, you can directly ask users for their insights in an intimate
setting where they can respond earnestly to open-ended questions.

Engaging with extreme users – You find the extreme cases within your userbase to determine the
greatest degrees of users’ needs, problems and problem-solving methods. You can then see the full scope
of problems which typical, non-extreme users might run into. If you can satisfy an extreme user, you can
satisfy any user.

Analogous empathy – Your team finds effective analogies to draw parallels between users’ problems
and problems in other fields. This way, you can get insights you’d otherwise overlook.

Sharing inspiring stories – Your team shares stories about what they have observed so you draw
meaning from these and note fascinating details.

Bodystorming – You wear equipment (e.g., goggles, gloves, torso attachments) to gain first-hand
experience of your users in their environment.

Empathy maps and customer journey maps – Your team should have at least one of these as a
reference point to appreciate the users’ perspectives.

Personas to establish accurate portraits/profiles of users who’ll interact with your product.
Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define the Problem and Interpret the Results
In the Define stage you synthesise your observations about your users from the first stage, the Empathise
stage. A great definition of your problem statement will guide you and your team’s work and kick start
the ideation process (third stage) in the right direction. Analysis is about breaking down complex concepts
and problems into smaller, easier-to-understand constituents. Synthesis, on the other hand, involves
creatively piecing the puzzle together to form whole ideas.
Conditions for Good Problem Statement
A problem statement is important to a Design Thinking project, because it will guide you and your team and
provides a focus on the specific needs that you have uncovered. A good problem statement should thus have the
following traits.

• Human-centered. This requires you to frame your problem statement according to specific users, their
needs and the insights that your team has gained in the Empathise phase.
• Broad enough for creative freedom. This means that the problem statement should not focus too
narrowly on a specific method regarding the implementation of the solution
• Narrow enough to make it manageable. On the other hand, a problem statement such as , “Improve the
human condition,” is too broad and will likely cause team members to easily feel daunted.
How to Define a Problem Statement
Methods of interpreting results and findings from the observation oriented Empathize phase include:
➢ Space Saturate and Group and Affinity Diagrams – Clustering and Bundling Ideas and Facts.
➢ Empathy Mapping
➢ Point Of View – Problem Statement
➢ “How Might We” Questions
Stage 3 in the Design Thinking Process: Ideate:
In the Ideation stage, design thinkers spark off ideas — in the form of questions and solutions — through
creative and curious activities such as Brainstorms and Worst Possible Idea. Ideation is the mode of the
design process in which you concentrate on idea generation.
Ideation Will Help You:
➢ Ask the right questions and innovate.
➢ Step beyond the obvious solutions and therefore increase the innovation potential of your
solution.
➢ Bring together perspectives and strengths of team members.
➢ Uncover unexpected areas of innovation.
➢ Create volume and variety in your innovation options.
➢ Get obvious solutions out of your heads, and drive your team beyond them.
Ideation Methods to Spark Innovative Ideas
There are hundreds of ideation methods. Some methods are merely renamed or slightly adapted versions
of more foundational techniques. Here you’ll get brief overview of some of the best methods:

1) Brainstorm
2) Braindump
3) Brainwrite
4) Brainwalk
5) Challenge Assumptions
6) SCAMPER
7) Mindmap
8) Sketch or Sketchstorm
9) Storyboard
10) Analogies
11) Provocation
12) Movement
13) Bodystorm
14) Gamestorming
15) Cheatstorm
16) Crowdstorm
17) Co-Creation Workshops
18) Prototype
19) Creative Pause
Ideation Methods to Select Ideas
Once the Ideation session is complete, the ideas must be collected, categorized, refined, and narrowed
down, so the team is able to select the best solutions, ideas, and strategies from a shortlist.
Post-it Voting or Dot Voting.
Four Categories Method
Bingo Selection
Idea Affinity Maps
Now Wow How Matrix
Six Thinking Hats
Lean Startup Machine Idea Validation Board
Idea Selection Criteria
Brainstorming Rules
Brainstorm session involves sprouting related points from a central idea. Brainstorming is one of the
primary methods employed during the Ideation stage of a typical Design Thinking process. We have
summarized the best practices and brainstorming rules for the brain storming

• Set a time limit

• Start with a problem statement, point of view, possible questions, a plan, or a goal
and stay focused on the topic: Identify the core subject or the main aim of the exercise.
• Stay on Topic: It is easy to veer off and take lots of different directions during brainstorming
sessions, especially when you are trying to be open-minded and unconstrained in your efforts to
come up with ideas.
• Defer judgement or criticism, including non-verbal: The brainstorming environment is
not the time to argue or for questioning other members’ ideas.
• Encourage weird, wacky and wild ideas: Once again, as brainstorming is a creative
activity, each member should try to encourage other members and create an environment in
which they feel comfortable verbalising their ideas.
• Aim for quantity: Brainstorming is effectively a creative exercise, in which design thinkers are
encouraged to let their imaginations run wild.
• Build on each others' ideas: One idea typically leads on from another; by considering the
thoughts, opinions, and ideas of other team members during the brainstorming session.

Stage 4 in the Design Thinking Process: Prototype

One of the best ways to gain insights in a Design Thinking process is to carry out some form of
prototyping. This method involves producing an early, inexpensive, and scaled down version of the
product in order to reveal any problems with the current design.

Types of Prototyping
Prototyping methods are generally divided into two separate categories: low- and high-fidelity
prototyping.
Low-Fidelity Prototyping
Low-fidelity prototyping involves the use of basic models or examples of the product being tested. For
example, the model might be incomplete and utilise just a few of the features that will be available in the
final design.
Examples of low-fidelity prototypes:
Storyboarding.
Sketching (although Bill Buxton, a pioneer of human-computer interaction, argues sketching is
not an example of prototyping).
Card sorting.

Pros of Low-Fidelity Prototyping

• Quick and inexpensive.
• Possible to make instant changes and test new iterations.
• Disposable/throw-away.
• Enables the designer to gain an overall view of the product using minimal time and effort,
as opposed to focusing on the finer details over the course of slow, incremental changes.
• Available to all; regardless of ability and experience, we are able to produce rudimentary
versions of products in order to test users or canvas the opinions of stakeholders.
• Encourages and fosters design thinking.

Cons of Low-Fidelity Prototyping

• An inherent lack of realism. Due to the basic and sometimes sketchy nature of low-fi prototypes,
the applicability of results generated by tests involving simple early versions of a product may
lack validity.
• Depending on your product, the production of low-fi prototypes may not be appropriate for your
intended users.
• Such prototypes often remove control from the user, as they generally have to interact in basic
ways or simply inform an evaluator, demonstrate or write a blow-by-blow account of how they
would use the finished product.

High-Fidelity Prototyping:High-fidelity prototypes are prototypes that look and operate closer to the
finished product. For example, a 3D plastic model with movable parts (allowing users to manipulate and
interact with a device in the same manner as the final design) is high-fi in comparison to, say, a wooden
block.

Pros of High-Fidelity Prototyping

• Engaging: the stakeholders can instantly see their vision realised and will be able to judge how
well it meets their expectations, wants and needs.
• User testing involving high-fi prototypes will allow the evaluators to gather information with a
high level of validity and applicability.
 • The closer the prototype is to the finished product, the more confidence the design team will have
in how people will respond to, interact with and perceive the design.

Cons of High-Fidelity Prototyping

 They generally take much longer to produce than low-fi prototypes.

 When testing prototypes, test users are more inclined to focus and comment on superficial
characteristics, as opposed to the content (Rogers, Preece, and Sharp, 2011).
 After devoting hours and hours of time producing an accurate model of how a product will appear
and behave, designers are often loathed to make changes.
 Software prototypes may give test users a false impression of how good the finished article may
be.
 Making changes to prototypes can take a long time, thus delaying the entire project in the process.
However, low-fi prototypes can usually be changed within hours, if not minutes, for example
when sketching or paper prototyping methods are utilised.

TOOLS FOR DESIGN THINKING

1. Visualization is about using images. It’s not about drawing; it’s about visual thinking. It pushes us
beyond using words or language alone. It is a way of unlocking a different part of our brains that allows
us to think nonverbally and that managers might not normally use.
2. Journey mapping (or experience mapping) is an ethnographic research method that focuses on
tracing the customer’s “journey” as he or she interacts with an organization while in the process of
receiving a service, with special attention to emotional highs and lows. Experience mapping is used with
the objective of identifying needs that customers are often unable to articulate.
3. Value chain analysis examines how an organization interacts with value chain partners to produce,
market, and distribute new offerings. Analysis of the value chain offers ways to create better value for
customers along the chain and uncovers important clues about partners’ capabilities and intentions.
4. Mind mapping is used to represent how ideas or other items are linked to a central idea and to each
other. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas to look for patterns and
insights that provide key design criteria.
5. Rapid concept development assists us in generating hypotheses about potential new business
opportunities.
6. Assumption testing focuses on identifying assumptions underlying the attractiveness of a new
business idea and using available data to assess the likelihood that these assumptions will turn out to be
true. These assumptions are then tested through thought experiments, followed by field experiments,
which subject new concepts to four tests: value creation, execution, scalability, and defensibility.
7. Prototyping techniques allow us to make abstract new ideas tangible to potential partners and
customers. These include storyboarding, user scenarios, experience journeys, and business concept
illustrations — all of which encourage deep involvement by important stakeholders to provide feedback.
8. Customer co-creation incorporates techniques that allow managers to engage a customer while in the
process of generating and developing new business ideas of mutual interest. They are among the most
value-enhancing, risk-reducing approaches to growth and innovation.
9. Learning launches are designed to test the key underlying value-generating assumptions of a potential
new-growth initiative in the marketplace. In contrast to a full new-product rollout, a learning launch is a
learning experiment conducted quickly and inexpensively to gather market-driven data.
10. Storytelling is exactly how it sounds: weaving together a story rather than just making a series of
points. It is a close relative of visualization—another way to make new ideas feel real and compelling.
Visual storytelling is actually the most compelling type of story. All good presentations—whether
analytical or design-oriented — tell a persuasive story.