Activities

 

 

1.      Identify the goal, target market, constraints and criteria in the design brief for the domestic computer trolley.

 

Domestic computer trolley

The growth of home computing suggests that there is a potential market for a new item of furniture: a domestic computer trolley. Such a trolley would be capable of accommodating, in appropriate positions, a computer monitor, keyboard, printer and accessories such as a separate disk-drive and storage boxes for disks. Potential users are both adults and children. Selling price must be not more than $300. Problems of form and aesthetics are seen to arise from the conflict between ‘high tech’ computer aesthetics and normal domestic furniture aesthetics. Also from the space in flats in Hong Kong.

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


2.      Think about objects in your own experience. Identify a familiar type of object that you consider has developed incrementally. Explain what the changes were for just one incremental change only. Use a simple sketch to aid your explanations. If you are stuck for an object use the telephone (see Collins, Design and Communication p3) as an example.

 

Answers:

 

1.          Goal                              design a movable furniture item to accommodate home          computer equipment.

Market                          adults and children

Constraints price, timescale

Criteria                         aesthetically satisfactory, space-saving, usable by both adults and children

 

2.          Old fashioned phones (fig 1.17) when I was young had these points:

§         Fingers needed to be put in correct hole to dial number

§         Time consuming – clockwise to dial number then the dial had to go back to beginning

§         Hole required to be correct dimension to fit human fingers

Replaced with fig 1.18:

§         Push button numbers speed dialling process

§         Number redial and memory

 

 

Activities

(See video 3: Creativity and Innovation / Challenge of the Portable Bike / Open University, Design: Principles and Practice Block 3 p13-19)

 

  1. In the video you saw and heard from two different designers: Dyson and Sanders. Think about what you have learned and try to apply the new concepts to the designers – in other words use them as examples for each of the sections.

 

  1. Try to solve the design exercises from Open University, Design: Principles and Practice Block 3 Supplementary Material p10-15 to see how creative a thinker you are!