Iteration or not?

The in-class mini exercise on brainstorming about a coffee cup offered a new perspective on design strategies. When we were first asked to brainstorm the properties of a coffee cup, all I could picture was the typical Starbucks paper coffee cup sitting on the table in the middle of the room. After all the properties were listed on the board, my mind opened up and I was able to combine the properties on the board and come up with a variety of different ways a coffee cup could turn out. For me, listing out the characteristics was a way of breaking down to the core definition of what a coffee cup is or needs to be. It raises a lot of questions such as why is the coffee cup shaped the way it is? Or why isn’t the sleeve incorporated as part of the design to the cup?

Some resemblance could be drawn between the thought process of the coffee cup exercise and the argument between the process of iteration and non-iteration. While iteration may be an effective way to represent an idea and a good technique that could be used for comparison, however this process may increase the fixation around the specific design theory or concept. This may eliminate the exploration of other possibilites. There have been times throughout my college years thus far where I look back after my final studio project review and wondered why I didnt’ explore other ideas that had equally as much  potential. The process of iteration may be a great way to keep a record of what is done and can be an effective process of evaluating different steps to a process, however, it runs the risk of contraining the designer to think in only one direction.

There are values in both arguments for and oppose the process of iteration. While the process of iteration is helpful in refining an idea, I also do agree with Michael Schrage that the cost that takes to iterate may sometimes result in a higher cost than a non-perfected design. Environmental factors, economic costs and social values are all circumstances that should be considered before judging whether iteration is valuable or not. Iterations of a cardboard model made for a semester-long studio class is very different from investing thousands of dollars on a machine in a three week project. In cases like designing for the thousand dollar machine project, digital modeling, drawings and calculations may be a cheaper and more effective way to figure things out. Nonetheless, the process of design is equally as important in both design projects.