Parallel Design

Parallel Design

With the parallel design technique, several people create an initial design from the same set of requirements. Each designer works independently and, when finished, shares his or her concepts with the group. Then, the design team considers each solution, and each designer uses the best ideas to further improve their own solution.

users are asked to test several variations of the same design at the same time. The best areas of each design are then merged into a single design.

Advantages:

• Allows a range of ideas to be generated quickly and cost effectively.
• Parallel nature of the approach allows several approaches to be explored at the same time, thus compressing the concept development schedule.
• The concepts generated can often be combined so that the final solution benefits from all ideas proposed.
• Only minimal resources and materials are required to convey product feel.
• The technique can be utilized by those with little or no human factors expertise.

Disadvantages:

•Parallel design requires a number of design team members to be available at the same time to produce the concepts

•It requires a major investment of time over a short period for the design work to be carried out.

•Time must be allocated to compare parallel design outputs properly so that the benefits of each approach are obtained.