Design Techniques in Practice (H7072)

15 credits, Level 5

Autumn teaching

The module delivers methods, thinking processes and techniques that will help you organise projects throughout your degree and career as a designer. This includes an understanding of the main empathic and intuitive (non-systematic) design research methods to develop design thoughts and subsequent concepts. We'll look at the relevance and importance of the Product Design Specification, with an understanding for how it changes during a typical product design development process.

You will be using 2D and 3D sketch concepts, along with other typical design development techniques such as the use of 2D and 3D computer-aided design, user-testing and conceptual iterations. The module content and associated project brief include the presentation of design concepts that could be taken to the eventual physical creation.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2023/24. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.

Courses

This module is offered on the following courses:

• Product Design (with an industrial placement year) BA
• Product Design (with an industrial placement year) BSc
• Product Design BA
• Product Design BSc