A book that I read recently has led me to deepen my awareness about hypotheses supposed to lead a design process. Hypotheses come in various styles, but when I develop one for my design project, I sometimes try to use my imagination to draw up tentative minutes of the presentation before working out design proposals. Unlike taking real minutes of the meeting, I try to visualize myself making a presentation and holding a question-and-answer session in front of the participants who are expected to attend the scheduled presentation. You may find such a thought experiment as something delusional. But in my experience, carrying out this kind of simulation ahead of time often helps me discover what’s missing in my explanation, what’s likely to be pointed out by the client, and additional content for supplementing my presentation story. If I am fortunate to find out what’s missing in my presentation, I will be able to improve its content in advance and build consensus with our client in more comfortable ways.  

Although things don’t always go as planned, imaginary minutes of the meeting helps to prepare for possible questions from the client and stimulate discussions after the presentation. It’s certainly important for designers to produce tangible outcomes and deliver their meanings in appealing ways. But it’s also important for us to guide our clients to better goals through our messages presented at the presentations.

Ikuya Taguchi

CMFG Design Dept.

Unit Leader