Anyone who is interested in product design should pay a
visit to Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum if he or she happens to be in New
York City. The visit will be a one-of-the-kind experience for a design aficionado.
The museum just reopened its door this year after renovation. Even though the
museum is still located in the existing historic Carnegie Mansion by Central
Park, it is aimed at providing immersive experience for its visitors through
the physical exhibition display and interactive media. It offers each visitor
who pays admission at the counter a high-tech wand so-called “the Pen” by the
museum to collect his/her images from the exhibitions, interactive tables or his/her
own creation on the tables. The Pen helps storing up the visitor’s collection
onto Cooper Hewitt’s website from which the visitor can retrieve the collection
on his/her own devices after the visit. Designers at Cooper Hewitt in charge of this unique user experience design shared an very interesting coverage on how they develop and design the user experience.
However, for designers, the most impressive part of the new
museum is the process lab. In this
newly created Process Lab, Cooper Hewitt has drawn on its extensive experience through
the years in planning and providing education programs on design for people of
all ages to create an immersive learning space that brings the design process
to life. The museum asks a visitor to “play designers” in this lab to
gain the first hand experience on how things are created and made through the
design process. Isn't it that we used to do role playing in our childhood play time? So play designers will enable the visitors to immerse in the design experience. Guided by the display panels in the lab showing assorted design
processes, methods, and approaches, visitors can try their hands on designing objects.
These guiding principles on the panels to me are reminiscences of methods and
skills I have acquired in the design school, such as:· Brainstorming
· Think of the human scale when designing: as on one corner of the wall showing Henry Dreyfuss Associates’ male and female figures from its groundbreaking book, the Measure of Man and Woman
· Mix and match to improvise an interesting combination (or an impromptu0
· To draw and to make prototype
In problem solving
section of the lab, IDEO showcases its renown design process and its real-world case study. And once again IDEO proves itself to be the world class innovation consultant firm.
The lab even shows a
latest 3D printer at work and its output samples. The 3D printers combining
with Computer-Aided-Design programs are creating new realm of design that has
never been envisioned before. As it is evident in the generative design samples in this lab that are part of
bio-mimicry and part of pattern morphology.
The lab very much leans
toward introducing visitors to design process used by industrial designers,
mechanical engineers, and human factor specialists with very light coverage on
the graphic, interior or architectural design. But for novices to design
process, going through the tasks offered in this lab definitely will make their
experience with design very engaging and immersive. And for designers, this is
the place to rekindle with skills and knowledge we should implement daily in
our projects.
