The Design Process requires

• Collaboration
• Research
• Design
• Building
• Testing
• Communication

Basic steps

1. Describe the general situation or problem you are trying to solve. Instead of asking “what do you want to design?” ask “why do you want to design that?” and “what problem and or need will your design ultimately be solving?”
   
2. Identify your target population, which group of people will benefit from your project. Is the target population an individual, a group, a specific community, or a larger, identifiable population? Is the target population from a specific location (country, region, town), demographic (age or gender), or other identifying characteristics (health condition or employment)? How is your target population connected?
   
3. Identify requirements and constraints. A requirement is a need or a necessity; it’s what a particular product or service should do. A constraint is a restriction on the degree of freedom you have in providing a solution to a need or problem.
   
4. Ask what are the disadvantages of the present solution to the problem?
   
5. Ask what compromises have been made in the present solution?
   
6. Determine if the compromises are necessary?
   
7. Determine if the solution can be improved?
   1. By taking a new approach
   2. By making the design more accurate, safer, more convenient, easier to maintain, cheaper, or more attractive
8. Determine if you can reduce the costs by eliminating parts, using different materials, changing the way the product is manufactured?

In a nutshell

1. Design Step 1: Identify the Need
2. Design Step 2: Research the Problem
3. Design Step 3: Brainstorm Possible Solutions
4. Design Step 4: Engineering Analysis-select the most promising solution
5. Design Step 5: Construct a Prototype
6. Design Step 6: Evaluate/Manufacture a Final Product-Reiterate

Design Provocations

The following list is attributed to Alex Osborn

• Substiture something
• Combine it with something else
• Adapt something to it
• Modify or magnify it
• Put it to some other use
• Eliminate something
• Reverse or rearrange it