Conceptual Design

Conceptual Design is an early phase of the design process, in which the broad outlines of the function and form of something are articulated.

What is Conceptual design?

Conceptual Design is an early phase of the design process, in which the broad outlines of the function and form of something are articulated. It includes the design of interactions, experiences, processes and strategies.

In an engineering product design environment, concept or conceptual design is an early stage of a product design process. Within the new product development cycle, it typically sits between the product definition and embodiment design.

The product requirement could be elaborate initially on demand-pull product developments, and the concept generation phase falls within the product design process.

But on technology-push new product development, the fuzzy front end is rather confusing as you have the technology (proven) at the start, but how that can be used to design products to sell is rather vague. Hence concept design falls at the start of with fuzzy end where you try out.

Within the fuzzy end of new product development, concept and technology development plays a crucial role in identifying the product’s range, design, etc. The concept or conceptual design stage concentrates on the chosen design within the product design phase.

Stages of Concept design

• Clarify the problem
• Search externally
• Search internally.
• Explore systematically
• Reflection and choose

Benefits of Conceptual design stage

• The first advantage of conceptual design is that it clarifies what a product can do and its intended use. When developing a product, this is essential.
• Conceptual designs aid in producing a user interface that is simple to comprehend and use.
• To ensure that the project is better understood, it is beneficial to describe the roles of various users and their requirements thoroughly.
• The design will assist in carefully considering the user’s points of view, making achieving the desired results easier.