Design

Communication
 COMMUNICATING DESIGNS
ORALLY AND IN WRITING
•REPORTING is an essential part of a design project.

•We communicate final design results in several ways, including oral presentations, final reports (that
may include design drawings and/or fabric specifications) and prototypes and models.
•The primary purpose of such communication is to inform our client about the design, including
expectations of how and why this design was chosen over competing design alternatives.

•It is most important that we convey the results of the design process.

•We should ensure that final reports and presentations are not narratives or chronologies of our work.

•Rather the presentations and reports should be lucid description of design outcomes, as well as the
processes with which those outcomes were achieved.
 Guidelines for technical
communication
1. Know your purpose

2. Know your audience

3. Choose and organize the content around your purpose and your audience.

4. Write precisely and clearly

5. Design your pages well.

6. Think visually

7. Write ethically
Know your purpose

•This is the writing analogue for understanding objectives and functions for a designed artifact.

•Just as we want to understand what the designed object must be and must do, we need to understand
the goals of a report or presentation.
•Design documentation seeks to inform the client about the feature of a selected design.

•Design team may be trying to persuade a client that a design is the best alternative.

•A designer may wish to report how a design operates to users, whether beginners or highly
experienced ones.
Know your audience

When documenting a design, it is essential that a design team structure its material to its targeted
audience.

Taking time to understand the target audience will help ensure that its members appreciate your
documentation.
Choose and organize the content around
your purpose and your audience
•The key element is to structure the presentation to best reach the audience.

•There are many different ways to organize information

 Going from general concepts to specific details (analogues to deduction in logic)
 Going from specific details to general concepts ( analogues to induction or inference)
 Describing devices or systems

•Once an organizational pattern is chosen, no matter which form is used, the design team should
translate it into a written outline. This allows the team to develop a unified, coherent document or
presentation while avoiding needles repetition.
Write precisely and clearly
•Some specific elements that seem to occur in all good writing and presentations.

•These include effective use of short paragraphs that have a single common thesis or topic.

• Direct sentences that contain a subject and a verb; and active voice and action verb that allow a reader
to understand directly what is being said or done.

•Opinions or viewpoints should be clearly identified as such.

•As long as the designer remembers that the goals of both technical and non technical communications
remain the same.
Design your pages well
•A long section divided into several subsections help readers to understand where the long section is
going and it sustains their interest over the journey.

•Tables should be treated as a single figure and should not be split over a page break.

•Simple and direct slides encourage readers to listen to the speaker without being distracted visually.

•Thus text on a slide should present succinct concepts that the presenter can amplify and describe in
more detail. A slide does not have to show every relevant thought.

•It is a mistake to fill slides with so many words (or other content) that audiences have to choose
between reading the slide and listening to the speaker, because then the presenter’s message will
almost certainly be diluted or lost.
Think visually
•Just as designers often find that visual approaches are helpful to them, audiences are helped by
judicious use of visual representation of information.

•Given the enormous capabilities of word processing and presentation graphics software, there is no
excuse for a team not to use visual aids in its reports and presentation.

•A team should not allow their graphics capabilities to seduce them into clouding their slides with
artistic backgrounds that make the words illegible.
•As it is with words, is to know your purpose and audience, and to use your medium appropriately.
 Write Ethically
•All results or test outcomes, even those that are not favourable, are presented and discussed.

•Ethical presentations also describe honestly and directly any limitations of a design.

•It is also important to give full credit to others, such as authors or previous researchers, where it is due.
Oral Presentations
TELLING A CROWD WHAT’S BEEN DONE
Most design projects call for a number of both formal and informal
presentations to clients, users, and technical reviewers
Because of the variety of presentations and briefings that a team may be
called upon to make, it is impossible to examine each of them in detail.
However, there are key elements common to most of them.
Foremost among these needs to
1. Identify the audience
2. Outline the presentation
3. Develop appropriate supporting materials
4. Practice the presentation
Knowing The Audience
Who’s Listening?
• A team planning a briefing should consider factors such as
varying levels of interest, understanding, and technical skill,
as well as the available time.
•Once the audience has been identified, a team can tailor its
presentation to that audience.
•As with other deliverables, the presentation must be
properly organized and structured:
• The first step is to articulate a rough outline;
• The second is to formulate a detailed outline;
• The third is to prepare the proper supporting materials,
such as visual aids or physical models.
The Presentation: Outline
•A title slide : that identifies the client(s), the project, and the
design team or organization responsible for the work being
presented. This slide should include company logos.
•A roadmap : for the presentation that shows the audience the
direction that the presentation will take. This can take the
form of an outline, a flowchart, a big picture slide, and so on.
•A problem statement: which includes highlights of the revised
problem statement that the team produced after research and
consultation with the client.
•Background material on the problem: including relevant prior
work and other materials developed through team research.
References should be included but may be placed in a slide at the
end of the presentation.
•The key objectives of the client and users : as reflected in the top
level or two of the objectives tree.
•The key constraints that the design must meet.
•Design alternatives : particularly those that were considered at the
evaluation stage, including diagrams and descriptions of each.
• Highlights of the evaluation procedure and outcomes: including
key metrics or objectives that bear heavily on the outcome.
•The selected design : explaining why this design was chosen.
•Features of the design : highlighting aspects that make it
superior to other alternatives and any novel or unique
features.
•Proof-of-concept testing : especially for an audience of
technical professionals for whom this is likely to be of great
interest.
•A demonstration of the prototype : assuming that a
prototype was developed and that it can be shown. Video or
still photos may also be appropriate here.
•Conclusion(s): including the identification of any future
work that remains to be done or suggested improvements to
the design.
Presentations Are Visual Events
•At the earliest stages of the presentation planning, the
design team should find out what devices (e.g.,
overhead projectors, computer connections,
projectors, and whiteboards) are available and the
general setting of the room in which it will be
presenting.
•Tips & pointers
• Limit the number of slides.
• Be sure to introduce yourself and your teammates on the
title slide.
• Beware of “clutter.” Slides should be used to highlight key
points; they are not a direct substitute for the reasoning of
the final report.
• Make points clearly, directly, and simply
•Use color skillfully
•Use animation appropriately
•Do not reproduce completed design tools
•Consider carefully the size and distance of the
audience
 Practice Makes Perfect
•To be effective, speakers typically need to practice their
parts in a presentation alone, then in front of others,
including before an audience with at least some people
who are not familiar with the topic.
•We want to speak to an audience in their language, and
that we want to maintain a professional tone.
•Practice sessions, whether solitary or with others,
should be timed and done under conditions that
come as close as possible to the actual
environment.
•While practicing its presentation, a team ought to
prepare for questions from its audience by:
• Generating a list of questions that might arise, and
their answers;
• Preparing supporting materials for points that are likely to
arise (e.g., backup slides that may include computer results,
statistical charts, and other data that may be needed to
answer anticipated questions).

• Preparing to say “I don’t know,” or “We didn’t consider

that.” This is very important: A team, that is, to be caught
pretending to know has undermined its credibility and
invited severe embarrassment.
 Mathematical Modelling in
Design
•Mathematical model: A representation in mathematical terms of the
behavior of real devices and objects.
•MATHEMATICAL MODELS are central to design because we have to be
able to predict the behavior of the devices or systems that we are designing.
• It is important for us to ask: How do we create mathematical models? How
do we validate such models? How do we use them? And, are there any
limits on their use?
 SOME MATHEMATICAL HABITS OF
THOUGHT FOR DESIGN MODELING
•We will focus on representing the behavior and function of real devices
in mathematical terms.
•Basic Principles of Mathematical Modeling
◦ Why do we need a model?
◦ For what will we use the model?
◦ What do we want to find with this model?
◦ What data are we given?
◦ What can we assume?
•How should we develop this model, that is, what are the
appropriate physical principles we need to apply?
•What will our model predict?
•Can we verify the model’s predictions (i.e., are our
calculations correct?)
•Are the predictions valid (i.e., do our predictions conform
to what we observe?)
•Can we improve the model?
 ABSTRACTIONS, SCALING, AND
LUMPED ELEMENTS
•Abstractions : An important decision in modeling is choosing the right level of detail for
the problem, which thus dictates the level of detail for the model.
•Stated differently, thinking about finding the right level of abstraction or detail means
identifying the right scale for our model means thinking about the magnitude or size of
quantities measured with respect to a standard that has the same physical dimensions.

•We often say that a “real,” three-dimensional object behaves like a simple spring. When
we say this, we are introducing the idea of a lumped element model in which the actual
physical properties of a real object or device are aggregated or lumped into less detailed,
more abstract expressions.
 SOME MATHEMATICAL TOOLS
FOR DESIGN MODELING
Dimensions and Units
• Every independent term in every equation we use has to be
dimensionally homogeneous or dimensionally consistent, that is,
every term has to have the same net physical dimensions.
• The physical quantities used to model objects or systems represent
concepts, such as time, length, and mass, to which we attach
numerical measurements or values.
•Fundamental or primary quantities can be measured on a scale that is
independent of those chosen for any other fundamental quantities. For example,
mass, length, and time are usually taken as the fundamental mechanical
dimensions or variables.
•Derived quantities generally follow from definitions or physical laws, eg : force
is a derived quantity that is defined by Newton’s law of motion.
•If mass, length, and time are chosen as primary quantities, then the dimensions
of force are (mass x length)/(time)2. We use the notation of brackets [ ] to read as
“the dimensions of.” If M, L, and T stand for mass, length, and time,
respectively, then
Significant Figures :
•In scientific notation, the number of significant

figures is equal to the number of digits counted

from the first nonzero digit on the left to either

(a) The last nonzero digit on the right if there

is no decimal point, or

(b) The last digit (zero or nonzero) on the

right when there is a decimal point.

• we should always remember that the results of

any calculation or measurement cannot be any more accurate than the least accurate starting value.
•any calculation is only as accurate as the least accurate value we started with
Dimensional Analysis:
•We can learn a lot about some behavior by doing dimensional analysis, that is, by
expressing that behavior in a dimensionally correct equation among certain variables or
dimensional groups.
•The basic method of dimensional analysis is an informal unstructured approach for
determining dimensional groupings that depends on constructing a functional equation that
contains all of the relevant variables, for which we know the dimensions.
•We then identify the proper dimensionless groups by thoughtfully eliminating dimensions.
Physical Idealizations, Mathematical Approximations, and Linearity:
•First, we identify those elements that we believe are important to the problem.

•Second, we translate our physical idealization into a mathematical model

•Third, try to build models that are, mathematically speaking, linear models. Linearity shows up
in other contexts. Consider geometrically similar objects, that is, objects whose basic geometry is
essentially the same.
 CONSERVATION AND BALANCE
LAWS
•Many of the mathematical models used in engineering design are statements that
some property of an object or system is being conserved.
•Such balance or conservation principles are applied to assess the effect of
maintaining levels of physical attributes.
•Conservation and balance equations are related: Conservation laws are special
cases of balance laws.
 PROTOTYPING AND PROOFING
THE DESIGN
• Focus on how to translate our design ideas into models and prototypes that can be used to test our
design concepts and communicate our ideas to the client.

• Often the first step in such a process involves sketching or drawing our design, we can use these
representations to create the prototype or model.

• 3D representation
◦ as an input to a computational modeling program to simulate the design’s performance under specified conditions;
◦ as an input into a variety of rapid prototyping technologies, such as 3D printing;
◦ to generate detailed engineering drawings of the design;
◦ to guide
◦ the tool path in computer numerical controlled (CNC) machining
 PROTOTYPES
•“Original models on which something is patterned.” They are also defined as the
“first full-scale and usually functional forms of a new type or design of a
construction
• Prototypes are working models of designed artifacts.
•They are tested in the same operating environments in which they’re expected to
function as final products.
 MODEL
•“A miniature representation of something,” or a “pattern of something to be made,” or “an example
for imitation or emulation.”

• We use models to represent some devices or processes.

• They may be paper models or computer models or physical models.

• We use them to illustrate certain behaviors or phenomena as we try to verify the validity of an
underlying (predictive) theory.

• Models are usually smaller and made of different materials than are the original artifacts they
represent, and they are typically tested in a laboratory or in some other controlled environment to
validate their expected behavior.
 PROOF OF CONCEPT
•Refers to a model of some part of a design that is used specifically to test
whether a particular concept will actually work as proposed.
•Doing proof-of-concept tests means doing controlled experiments to prove or
disprove a concept.
 WHEN DO WE BUILD A PROTOTYPE?
•“It depends.”

•The size and type of the design space, the costs of building a prototype, the ease of building that
prototype, the role that a full-size prototype might play in ensuring the widespread acceptance of
a new design, the number of copies of the final artifact that are expected to be made or built.
• There is no obvious correlation between the size and cost of prototyping—or the decision to
build a prototype—and the size and type of the design space.
• It is that the project schedule and budget should reflect plans for building them.
BUILDING MODELS AND PROTOTYPES
•The important questions we must ask are:
• What do we want to learn from the model or prototype?
• Who is going to make it? • What parts or components can be bought?
• How, and from what, is it going to be made?
• How much will it cost?
There are many options for constructing prototypes and models

• Mock-ups: One option for making basic models or prototypes is to

construct a mockup of a 3D part from 2D cutouts. These 2D parts can be
made using a vinyl cutter or a laser cutter, and parts are then assembled
into 3D mock-ups of a design. Materials used for these mock-ups might
be foam, thin plastic, or wood.

• Machining: We may have the option of machining parts or all of our

prototypes ourselves in a machine shop.

• Rapid prototyping technologies: Rapid prototyping technologies have

emerged in recent years as relatively fast and cheap ways to fabricate
prototypes that would otherwise need to be injection molded. Rapid
prototyping techniques use 3D CAD models as inputs, and convert these
3D files into thin 2D layers to build the 3D part. Rapid prototyping
technologies include stereo-lithography and selective laser sintering
which involve using a laser to harden either a resin bath or a polymer
powder in a particular configuration to build each layer.