What Is Design?

Imagination Place! encourages girls to exercise their technological imaginations through design. Design takes many forms, but all forms have in common the organization of "parts" to achieve a purpose. Sometimes the "parts" are two-dimensional, as with words and images; sometimes they are three dimensional, as with objects, materials, parts, and components. This is what graphic designers have in common with interior designers and automobile designers, and what architects and city planners and landscapers have in common with fashion designers.

Definitions of design almost always make reference to the concepts of form and function and to the idea that good design reflects the marriage of the two. The activities outlined in this Resource Guide invite children, (especially girls) to look at the form and function of a wide range of artifacts, environments, and systems and to apply what they learn to their own designs.

Design is a process.

The design process includes several steps including: identifying a need, problem, or opportunity, coming up with an idea that meets the identified need, understanding and taking into consideration design options, choosing and making a design idea a reality.

The above graphic, illustrates typical steps in the design process -- steps that form a loop, known as the design loop. Although often thought of as linear, with a single entry point and a predetermined sequence, in practical, everyday terms, the design process is in fact dynamic, offering entry points at each step along the way, with movement back and forth between steps. Designers revisit the steps more than once in the process. For example, a designer may begin with bare bones information. As the designer continues and additional information becomes available modification of the initial design becomes necessary. Sometimes new information is not welcome, becauseit imposes itself on the designer and the designer must then adapt her design to accomodate this new information.

How to Encourage the Use of Design in Imagination Place! Design Clubs

In Imagination Place! clubs, children become familiar with the various steps of the design process. Negotiating the process promotes critical thinking, helps them to think through solutions to a wide range of problems and helps them to gain an understanding of parts in relation to the whole system. Since design is at the heart of Imagination Place! it is important for club leaders to experience and promote the big ideas included below.

Design is conscious and intentional.

The world is a designed environment.

At the heart of design is invention. It is important that children recognize that everyone designs, invents and/or innovates, and imagines.

It is important that participants develop a conscious sense of themselves as designers. For children this can mean coming up with new and improved solutions to a broad range of problems; everyday problems ranging from homework to getting places.

In Imagination Place!, children are encouraged to create whimsical inventions. As they become familiar with the design process they are reminded to consider and keep in mind three things including:

• Audience: Who is an invention for?
• Form: What will the invention look like?
• Function: How will the invention work?

Designing technology often involves looking at systems. Analyzing systems involves thinking about parts in relationship to the whole.

The form or shape of an object or system is related to its use, operation, and/or function.

Design can be a process of making decisions. As a result of making one choice we automatically eliminate other possibilities or options.