Tradeoffs
A defining kind of thinking that designers do repeatedly
involves balancing the benefits and drawbacks (tradeoffs)
of different approaches to reach a preferred solution.
Having students talk and write about the tradeoffs they
are considering when deciding on one prototype among
others can help them get better at doing informed designing.
"One of the most difficult aspects of product
development is recognizing, understanding, and managing
such tradeoffs in a way that maximizes the success of
the product." Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger Product
Design and Development (1995).
Tradeoffs are described in AAAS' Atlas of Science Literacy
as a central tenet to design reasoning. Sometimes Decision
Grids (see page 6 of LBD's Design Diary) can visually
depict the benefits and tradeoffs of an especially difficult
design decision among competing design ideas. The following
are cases where tradeoffs play a role in making design
decisions:
- Air Quality/Home Heating - In
winter, all houses leak heated air to the outdoors.
Methods for sealing homes that limit such air transfer
have gotten so good that houses are "too tight".
Such houses have the benefit of losing little heated
air, but suffer the tradeoff that occupants to get
sick for lack of fresh air.
- Gloves: One-Size-Fits-All/Goodness-of-Fit
- It costs less to make one-size-fits-all
gloves, but for a number of users, the fit is poor.
- Optimal Popcorn Cooking Time -
During the first two minutes of cooking popcorn, most
of the corn pops. You can continue to cook so that
100% of the kernels pop, but risk the tradeoff of
burning the existing popcorn.
- Cost/Benefit: Titanium Cellphone -
You can use strong-yet-light material like titanium
to make a cellphone that does not break when stepped
on, but the tradeoff is that the phone will cost as
much as a laptop computer.
- Flat Roofed House: Easy-to-build/Hard-to-maintain
- A house with a flat roof is easier to build
that one with a sloped roof. When it rains, however,
flat roofs have problems with water collecting and
leaking inside. Maintaining a flat roof requires extra
work that a sloped roof does not require.
- City Planning: Casinos in Town
- Those who wanted casinos in Atlantic City, NJ, argued
that the benefits of increasing business and state
tax revenues in the New Jersey shoretown would outweight
the tradeoffs of increased crime and a reduction of
gambler's spendable income. As the Atlantic City Journal
reported in May 25, 2003, "The [gaming] industry
has changed the face of Atlantic City with new residents,
new development and new problems."
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