What knowledge systems do web designers need?

Product designers face complex and large manufacturing systems and diversified markets, so their knowledge system must have both breadth and depth. Design is a gradual and in-depth process, so we are faced with an intertwined subject system and in-depth technical exploration. While the domestic industrial design education community is still heatedly debating whether design is art or technology, it is worth taking a step back and thinking that design itself is both integrated and independent, both dependent and has its own irreplaceable significance. Looking at the entire society, the object of design is our life or lifestyle. Therefore, loving life and having a delicate experience and sensitive touch for life are the basis for becoming an excellent designer.
So what should we learn? How can we build a strong knowledge system in our hearts to use it for design implementation? The following are Dieter Rams' ten design principles. The concise and general language reflects the multiple aspects of design:
Dieter Rams, a design master who has influenced generations of designers, distilled excellent design into its most essential language. If we break down these ten principles and merge the related aspects, we can arrive at the five aspects shown in Figure 1-1: function, form, concept, attitude and responsibility.
The knowledge system that designers need 123WORDPRESS.COM

The knowledge system that designers need 123WORDPRESS.COM

Figure 1-1 Dieter Rams' ten design principles are broken down into five aspects. The ten points are basically evenly distributed to each aspect, which is also a reflection of Dieter Rams's equal requirements for design. Then we will connect it with related knowledge disciplines to observe the entity nodes of the design knowledge system.
From Figure 1-2, we can see that, based on the ten principles of good design, the designer’s knowledge system includes both engineering and business. Engineering is easy to understand, including engineering disciplines centered on physics and chemistry, as well as interaction, which are directly related to the functional attributes of the product and are also the core parts that designers strive to convey. Business includes marketing and sales, which help designers gain insight into market demand and develop new product features or make corrections.

Figure 1-2 Subject nodes in five major aspects In addition, we sometimes confuse the aesthetics and plastic arts knowledge contained in form. It can be understood that aesthetics is a sufficient condition, that is, as a designer, you must have aesthetic knowledge and a good sense of beauty. Modeling is a necessary ability. One of the main activities in design is modeling. Therefore, designers need to create beauty while recognizing beauty. The scope of concepts is the broadest. In addition to some ways of thinking that can be summarized in words, concepts are largely related to one's own background knowledge, such as the designer's social environment, working atmosphere, way of thinking, etc. Attitude is also a sociological aspect. From a horizontal perspective, we can believe that attitude is the source of forming a style. We can also see the designer’s world view and values from his design works.
Finally, there is the designer’s responsibility, which is increasingly valued in today’s society. After going through commercial projects, design behavior directly affects society and triggers communication with society. The work of a designer is closely related to objects, mutually beneficial and win-win with people, consistent with society, and harmoniously coexisting with the environment. Therefore, the designer himself must be responsible for the design, avoid the waste of resources caused by excessive design, and explore new ways in design to obtain product usage methods that are more conducive to social development. Therefore, designers should not only focus on the design knowledge system itself, but also understand the responsibilities they have to bear.
Start with aesthetics Design is evolving rapidly due to its technical aspects and social significance. The most direct and fastest channel for designers to obtain design information is the Internet. In the past five years, the way design information is disseminated has undergone great changes. We can find that design is no longer the focus of the niche market, but is becoming more and more popular among the general public. More and more people are willing to pay for visual consumption and creativity. This is a significant signal.
The editorial of TVBS Weekly "Chao 2010 I Love Design" mentioned that design needs to be promoted by mass media. Originally, design has no boundaries and is a natural need for every member of society, but it has been shelved for a long time. For practitioners in the design industry, this has two sides: it is easier for designers to obtain new design advice from Internet media, but at the same time, the increasing public aesthetics also reminds design practitioners that they have to pay attention to the increasingly professional mass consumer market. Designers must first learn to read pictures and cultivate good aesthetic sense and the ability to analyze pictures. In simple terms, only by broadening your horizons can you achieve extraordinary results.
As shown in Table 1-1, design websites are generally divided into the following categories: comprehensive design portals, industrial design classification portals, and design blogs.

Table 1-1 Recommended table of major design network information Not only need to read pictures, but also read words - designer's bibliography Due to the development of science and technology and the accelerated pace of life, the era of reading pictures has come, which has brought huge challenges to text books. As the most precious product of mankind, words always have an irreplaceable position. Words can convey more systematic, comprehensive and insightful viewpoints than pictures; at the same time, their unique organizational relationships can convey to us accuracy and delicacy that is higher than the visual sense. While browsing a large amount of image information, reading a large amount of text can help designers gain more creative ideas and acquire a systematic and coherent knowledge system. It would of course be best if you could read widely, but due to time and experience constraints, we may have to select texts that suit us and absorb knowledge in a targeted manner.
I will divide the books mainly for product designers into the following categories: user research, design thinking, methodology, product design technology, design hand-drawing, and design and business. These books are all aimed at "design" in a narrow sense. If you want to connect design with the entire society, you need to read a lot of philosophy and sociology books. For designers who have very limited free time, reading design magazines regularly is also a good habit.
Table 1-2 is a list of books I recommend.

Table 1-2 Recommended books on product design and user research There are currently very few books on product design research, and a large amount of information needs to be accumulated and summarized from our daily design process. In the field of interaction design, user research is becoming increasingly standardized. Product designers can use the descriptive language of users in interaction design theory and methods such as role segmentation of user objects to assist themselves in researching user behavior patterns.
Although the recommended book "Change on Demand" talks about design, unlike general design books, this book does not focus on explaining how design work should be done. Rather, it is a book that inspires readers on how to think. This book uses simulation, emulation, and pre-setting of a situation to understand "needs" and the real demands of users. This book also lists many examples of success or failure, and points out what the successful people focused on and what the unsuccessful people ignored.
The second recommended book is "The Road to Interaction Design". The author Alan Cooper has always adhered to the design and engineering process based on the principle of "user first, silicon second". This approach allows technical teams to do things right the first time, resulting in better products faster. As for product design, faced with the overall black box nature of the product (product black box means that everyone can only see the direct results obtained through a certain operation, but cannot understand the intermediate process), the design tends to be invisible, and it is necessary to understand how electronic technology can bridge with users. This will help us expand our vision beyond the single product form and grasp the essence of the design object from a macro perspective. In addition, "About Face3 The Essence of Interaction Design" edited by Alan Cooper, Reimann R. and Cronin D. also provides effective user research theories and methods, and is also suitable for product designers to read.
There are very few books that describe design methods. Even if most books are directly named "design thinking", their content violates the freedom of thinking itself. A book describing design thinking must not be a list of regular methods and approaches, but should be an heuristic guidance.
This popular design book, "Design in Design", explores the thinking roots of design and human life, and is permeated with a strong philosophical sentiment. Mr. Kenya Hara, the Japanese design master, faces "daily life" with eyes that ignore the rapid development and changes of the outside world. He looks for where his designs are needed with a humble but sharp gaze, and places himself precisely where his intentions can be given life. As our daily lives are becoming increasingly entangled in their own ruts, he is keenly aware of the signs and indications of design, and consciously and independently challenges the unknown areas within it. Today, China is also facing a series of problems brought about by continued economic overheating, which is exactly what many developed countries have experienced. How design can survive and take responsibility in such an environment is what many domestic designers are currently seeking. Kenya Hara appeared in China in the "Design of Design - Kenya Hara 2011 Design Exhibition" and a series of activities. He conveyed to Chinese designers the design concept of rooting in national exploration of the origin, and once again brought this "nothingness" design concept to a climax.
After the popularity of Design in Design, Mr. Zhu E once again translated and published books such as The Awakening of Design by Kazuko Tanaka, Why Design and MUJI by Kenya Hara and Masayo Abe. With the same plain writing style, he silently permeated aesthetics, thinking and innovative consciousness into black and white words. On the other side of the ocean, at Northwestern University in the United States, Donald A. Norman, a professor of computer science, psychology and cognitive science, used his unique academic background from the perspective of a design fanatic to write "Emotional Design as a Designer" and "Design Psychology", which won applause and were hailed as masterpieces of knowledge produced under the Western education model.
"Design Psychology" explains the supreme design principle of people-oriented: users should know how to operate at a glance, and consumers should enjoy fun rather than suffer frustration. This book is worth careful reading for every designer. Although it was published in the 1980s, its thinking and significance are still relevant. The subsequent publication of "Emotional Design" has the same unique and delicate language and light-hearted and humorous writing style as the former. It is based on the three different dimensions of design: instinct, behavior and reflection, and explains the important position and role of emotion in design. It also deeply analyzes how to integrate emotional effects into product design. The United States, which advocates scientific practicality, cuts into design from another objective world perspective, striving to show the root of design to the public instead of losing itself in the ocean of styles.
Books on design methods mostly appear as textbooks, which are rigorous and standardized but lack vitality. As the world's top design agency, IDEO provides a series of design cases for more people working in the design industry. IDEO's masterpiece "IDEA Story" tells how they brainstorm, which points to focus on in design requirements, how to simulate in the design process, and how to collaborate with others to extract the 1+1>2 effect. Now, it has made a stunning turnaround, taking the lead in providing service design and fighting side by side with customers. Moggridge, who is associated with IDEO, published another masterpiece, "The Critical Design Report". In this book, author Bill Moggridge leads readers to get close to more than 40 designers who are important in this field, and uses their experience to clearly present the key development context of modern technology design.
Many foreign design books are recommended above because advanced countries' industrialization process is earlier than ours. We can stand on the shoulders of giants to learn about advanced design thinking books. The fundamental purpose is to enable Chinese design to enter the international stage. At the same time, there are also some good works in China. I would like to recommend the respected book "Outline of Principles of Things" by Mr. Liu Guanzhong. Liu Guanzhong is a pioneer in Chinese industrial design. He has been practicing the theory of principles of things in design education. This theory is the theoretical basis of system design. Mr. Liu Guanzhong expounds the essence of design activities from the viewpoint of dialectical materialism. His writing is professional and profound. His book is a classic reading on design theory.
Design knowledge Design knowledge books can be subdivided according to the design knowledge system, such as hand-drawing, craftsmanship and so on. Hand-drawing, as a basic design skill, is a "hard work" that we all value very much. Design hand-drawing education has gone through three eras of changes. For example, the first generation was represented by the standard drawing method represented by Yoshiharu Shimizu. This regular design hand-drawing form was strict and meticulous, but lacked a sense of freedom; the second generation was represented by Scott Robertson’s complex node drawing method. The smoothness of the lines and the liveliness of the expressions made many designers crazy; the third generation was represented by Liu Chuankai, who embodied the design divergence process in a simple and quick way, and the form was vivid and full of tension. Hand-drawing needs to have personal characteristics just like the designer's handwriting, and it should be closely linked to the design process rather than simply staying at the formal level. This book goes beyond the display-type listing of general hand-drawing books. It starts from the relationship between light, shadow and form, combines successful cases of top design agencies, and realizes the connection between hand-drawing and actual products. The equally wonderful "Process: 50 Product Designs from Concept to Manufacture" selects fifty excellent product design cases, describes each design process in detail, and highlights the product's special new materials and corresponding processes. By describing the product creation process, readers can see the past and present of the latest and best designs.
An important indicator of the increasing progress of product design is the use of new design materials and new technologies. The corresponding Chinese version of "The Birth of a Product: 50 Examples of Classic Products from Concept to Production" has been launched in China. If you need a more professional introduction, a recently published tool-based process book is also highly recommended, namely "Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals", which has not yet been published in Chinese. Designers who need to learn about new materials and new technologies can refer to "Analysis of Classic Case Studies of Product Design Technology", which is a comprehensive application book in the series of books on the five major design materials: "Metal", "Plastic", "Wood", "Metal", and "Ceramics". Different from the five major design material book series, this book's analysis angle is from the product perspective, describing the materials and processes according to the product shape.
Nowadays, more and more publishing industries are targeting the design industry, and the pace of introducing foreign design books is accelerating. The time difference between domestic and foreign design information has been greatly shortened. This is undoubtedly a good thing for designers.
This article is excerpted from "I am a Designer", written by Liu Song and Wang Lei, published by People's Posts and Telecommunications Press

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