Any one into Generative Design ?

Design Discussions general design discussion
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The 1000’s of meaningless designs were likely done without any kind of design process. They were done with a “shotgun” approach which is common in the East where manufacturing is cheap. The theory is that you flood the market first with as many inexpensive variations of a product as possible and see what sells. In the West, it’s more common to have a “rifle” approach, which utilizes a lot of research, strategy and design process to ensure the product hit’s it’s mark, reducing risk.

Generative software is great for the meaningless “shotgun” approach, but designers strive for the meaning-full “rifle” approach.

For example, if an Industrial Designer were to design an MP3 player, a good design process would be to use “generative research” (aka co-creation) to help isolate preferences among those customers. In an hour, I would make a bunch of wood or foam shapes, and hand them to research participants. I’d ask them to talk about the merits of each shape and weight, talking about how they’d use the product in their life. I would then give them a bunch of cut-outs that represent controls, like screens and buttons. I’d let them choose among them, and place them on their preferred model wherever they’d want. I’d have them discuss why. I would then go back and improve the fidelity of the concepts, by sketching and model-making. I’d then do another round of research.

Here’s why that process beats generative design:

  1. You want physical models not renderings, and today’s rapid prototyping software just isn’t as efficient as a designer carving a bunch of concepts out of for a few hours.

  2. You want to separate your research variables, and progressively-disclose choices to the user. In your MP3 example, you’ve created a bunch of renderings, but you’d really need to create thousands more to cover all the variations. That’s just not practical for the research participant. Rather than give them 10x10 choices, you want to give them 2 choices of 10: pick your shape, pick your controls.

  3. You want your subject to co-create with you. Give them a bunch of controls and have them choose what they are and where they go, and tell you why. This is cheaper, faster and gives you more meaning.