A Case Study in Design Iteration

thingiverse

The focus of this lesson is intentionally designing for iteration; prototyping as experimentation, and adapting when surprises arise - such as a customer changing their mind or discovering an error in one's own thought process. Students are assigned to design, build and install a house number on an outdoor sign that meets the homeowner's approval. The instructor, playing the role of the homeowner, triggers the need for design iteration by expressing dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the student's prototype. Given the fact that re-printing numbers takes hours, but re-printing hole plugs only takes minutes, this lesson emphasizes perfecting the look and fit of the hole plugs through iterative design.