Figure 1 – What the customer wanted (Dieter and Schmidt 2009: 11)
A ‘Brief’ describes itself perfectly. It has nothing confirmed. It does not consider numerical constraints or criteria; it does not describe the final product. It simply states the problem. It is brief.
If the requirements from the customer are not clear, you must clarify as many requirements as you can, this helps when considering areas to be researched later on in the Planning & Clarification stage. Take the statement below;
Customer – “I would like a door.”
Where do you start? Draw or listing doors? How many types of door can you list?
Car Door, Trap Door, Front Door, Back Door, Inside Door, Cat Door, Door to another dimension, Security Door, Cupboard Door, Shed Door, Roller Shutter Door, Automatic Door.
It could be any of the above, once again, “you must clarify as many requirements as you can” (Lander, about 30 seconds ago: this page). DO NOT draw anything, until you have understood the brief. The customer may not know the type of door they want, so ask them! Figure 1 is a perfect example of what happens when you simply don’t ask.
On CURVE.coventry.ac.uk you can find a video called “Better by design: A more comfortable seat”. Approximately halfway through Seymour and Powell interview a panel of expert about their requirements for an airline seat. This is a fantastic example of Understanding the Brief and forming Constraints and Criteria. Essential Viewing (Internet Explorer Required).
You will define your own customer requirements from the brief. You may find you ‘refine’ them too as the project progresses, if other factors affect the customer’s requirements eg. Steel cost increases; petrol increases; they go out of business. If your design doesn’t meet the customer’s expectations, it will be discarded and you don’t get paid.
Dieter and Schmidt (2009: 75) suggest; “The design process only proceeds into the concept generation once the product is so well described that it has met with the approval of groups of technical and business discipline specialists and managers”.
So STEP 1 is to ask questions to form the requirements. The example below is from Foster (1996: 142). Here he witnesses a conversation between his boss and a customer who has asked them to advertise their bacon company; his Boss asks, “I wonder if I could ask you a few questions regarding bacon please?” They are;
What is bacon exactly? What kind of pigs do you farm? Do some pigs produce better bacon? Why? What are pigs fed? Why are they fed corn and whey and peanuts and slops? Where does this corn and whey and peanuts and slop come from? What kind of corn? What kind of whey? What kind of peanuts? What kind of slop? How much are they fed? Why? Do your pigs win prizes? How many prizes? Who raises your pigs? Are they all from the same place? Why? What buildings do they live in? Is the temperature or humidity or lighting controlled? How are they shipped to market? How old are they when they’re shipped? How much do they weigh when they’re shipped to market? Does this differ from your competitors? How is bacon made? What is it cut with? What are its fat and moisture content? Why do you cure bacon? What do you cure it with? How long do you cure it? Why do you smoke it? What kind of wood do you use? Why? How long do you smoke it? What is the ideal ratio of fat to meat?
This is half the number of questions listed in the book, and this is advertising bacon! Think about all the questions you need to ask if you want to design machines and cars and things that go bang!
STEP 2 uses the customer requirements and orders them into sets, you should the try and group them so each customer requirement is grouped with similar areas in a set. The example in Figure 3 from Haik and Shahin (2011: 122) shows how they considered a number of customer requirements, they’ve been grouped under “safety, quality, convenience and economical”. Yours maybe different, see Table 1 for some ideas.
STEP 3 – Consider the Objective Tree method in Figure 2. Cross (2008: 83) arranges the customer requirements into a tree-like structure expanding on each sub-category. The tree shows how you expand on a brief, in this instance the customer has asked for it to be “convenient, safe and attractive” transport systems for a city;
Figure 2 – Objective tree for a ‘convenient, safe, attractive’ new transport system (Cross 2008: 84)
This uses the ordered sets that defined in STEP 2. Try to organise your requirements before you start the tree. This method allows the designer to explore each area and explore each area in turn. This method is similar to brainstorming (See Gantt Chart and Brainstorming, sketching, concepts, freeform thinking.) It shows how different connections may occur. In Figure 2 the ‘Safety’ branch shows these connections between customer requirements.
Following the advice for STEP 1 above, first ask as many questions as possible. Figures 3 and 4 shows the same method applied for someone who received the brief “Design an automatic Coffee Maker”;
Figure 3 – Objective Tree for a Coffee Maker (Haik and Shahin 2011:122)
Figure 4 – Objective Tree for a Coffee Maker (Haik and Shahin 2011: 123)
Summary
When given a brief follow this process;
STEP 1 – Clarify the customer requirements > STEP 2 – Order the list into sets > STEP 3 – Draw an objective tree
Consider these areas when you’re gathering requirements and ordering into sets, and ask, “what is bacon exactly?”.
| Reliability | Lifespan | Efficiency of operation |
| Cost | Ease of manufacture | Simplicity of layout |
| Serviceability | Ease of maintenance | Safety |
Table 1 – Heading suggestions for ordered sets for customer requirements (Hawkes and Abinett 1990: 2)
Back to Planning and Clarification
Back to MAE Design Model