ChatGPT is taking over the world!… Or is it? Here is the first article on the BYU Design Review written entirely by an artificial intelligence. No edits were made by a human of any kind. What do you think? Impressive or Over-hyped?
Why Designers Make Prototypes
Have you been asked to make a prototype, or feel like you should be doing more prototyping, but you’re not quite sure why, or not quite sure how to get the most out of prototyping? This article presents 4 reasons designers make prototypes. Understanding these reasons and mapping them onto your project will unlock the power of prototypes and speed up your development efforts.
Good Ideas: They Come From Your Head
It sounded like I was trying to find sources for plagiarizing answers. But I was genuinely concerned—if the internet is just some depository of mediocre thinking, where on earth was I supposed to go to find good ideas? She looked startled that I asked the question, but one millisecond later she gave me an answer that changed my life…
Five Articles From 2022 You May Have Missed
As we wrap up the end of another calendar year, we wanted to draw attention to some articles that may have slipped under your radar.
Most Read Articles of 2022
Check out our most popular articles from 2022!
Barely Tolerance-able
My particular legal field, real estate, requires me to work with engineers frequently. But let me be absolutely frank with you. When I am arranging settlement meetings, I will do all I can to avoid inviting engineers. I do love you guys. But these meetings are about compromise, and engineers struggle with that. Why?
Christmas Gift Ideas for Design Engineers 2022
If you’re shopping for a designer or an engineer, this article is for you. If you are a designer or an engineer, this article is also for you.
A Spoonful of Paper Helps the Prototype Go Down
I’ve come to learn is that the prototyping stage can (and should) belong at the very beginning of the design process. This article will focus on the role that early prototyping – specifically paper prototyping – can play in developing strong designs.
How do we Develop Creativity?
I hope to show in a Ratatouille fashion that “anyone can [create]” given practice and the right environment.
Design Principles behind Jack-o-Lantern Carving
I learned the hard way that carving a jack-o-lantern takes dedication and planning. I’ve learned a few more lessons from pumpkin carving since then and, in the spirit of Halloween, I’ll share those with you today.
Visual Thinking Exercises for Engineers
Visual thinking skills enables good sketching. Good sketching facilitates rapid design iteration. Good design emerges from significant iteration. Based on this logic, visual thinking skills are foundational to good design.
BYU Campus in LEGO
We challenged dozens of BYU engineering students to design LEGO Architecture-style models of BYU buildings; here you’ll see some of the many outstanding designs that were created. If you’re a current BYU student, an alumnus, or have ever visited the BYU campus, we hope these designs bring back great memories.
Public Sustainable Design Projects in California
Truly, California has beautiful weather, lots of people, and some unique ideas. Some of these ideas have flopped, but others are very intriguing and should be spread around. I find myself respecting their efforts to try new ideas and become early adopters on many things that other states should consider embracing as well.
Ideation Techniques: Affinity Mapping
Engineers, scientists, and designers all gather data and then try to make sense of it later. We have equations and models to help us simulate this data. But we also have a problem – these tools were designed for numerical data, and not all data is solely quantitative. Affinity mapping is an abductive reasoning process that enables people to make sense of large amounts of subjective, qualitative, or observational data.
Good Design: Going-to-the-Sun Road
The advent of the automobile presented an interesting design problem for Glacier National Park: how could visitors travel easily to and from each attraction in the park? This road would need to cut through these sharp, rocky mountains through an easy route made for the everyday automobile.
Who's who: Getting to know the BYU Design Review Team
We’re celebrating the BDR’s third birthday this month! We want to introduce this year’s BDR team, and we’ve asked everyone to share some thoughts or advice for this upcoming school year. Best of luck with your studies, projects, and everything in between!
How to get the most out of an engineering conference
Attending conferences can be nerve racking and exhausting, but they are also exciting and inspiring. When I started my PhD, I thought I would be able to go to many conferences, but a pandemic had other plans. I found myself only attending one in-person conference during my program. With only one chance at an in person conference, I knew I needed to make the most of it.
Hidden Engineering: The Design Secrets of Ancient Empires
Water is a force of life and a force of change that every civilization in the history of the world has had to deal with. My work as a licensed professional water engineer includes predicting and controlling flooding. Erosion control is an important part of my work and the basis of why many ancient sites still survive today. Ancient engineers understood the world they lived in and innovated in powerful ways to survive in harmony with the elements.
Good Design: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, and The Phonetic Alphabet
Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo… this is the NATO phonetic alphabet. What made this design so enduring that it survived the analog age, and the onset and proliferation of the digital age? Why was this design so universal that it is used throughout the world with only minor regional adaptations?
Ideation Techniques: Assessing the Effectiveness of your Brainstorming Session
Objective brainstorming feedback is hard to find. Most people will accept whatever ideas get thrown up and move on. But not us! We are intelligent citizens of the design community who want to get better at brainstorming! What resources are out there to help us improve our ideation practice?