Visualizing Early Product Decisions and Sticking to them... or Not

An important skill in the professional life of an industrial design is to be able to create products and thereby making product / development decisions within a given set of limitations. These parameters are important factors, which should be used actively, when venturing into design / development of a new product, from idea to finished product. This paper presents the challenges from a course at the Industrial Design programme at Aalborg University, with creating, grasping and concretizing the very non-concrete parameters that often appear when initiation a design process [1]. At the same time this paper presents a design thinking [2] approach to some of the possibilities for utilizing this non-concrete information in design specifications, thereby leading to a different design process, building on the principles of Ries [3],facilitating a series of informed, divergent and convergent, thought processes. This paper seeks to describe some of the possibilities in using this process as well as some of the shortcomings. At the same time the paper presents a way of creating a common foundation for addressing / discussing the non-concrete parameters at the beginning of the design process, named the value based mood board tool, which allows the students to reflect upon the difficulties of making decisions and sticking to the consequences. The approach will in this paper be reflected upon from both a studentpoint-of-view and as well as a professional, practicing designers point-of-view