Stages of Design Process

This is an interesting stuff about "Stages of Design Process". The above diagram has been picked up from the book "Visual Research" of Ian Noble and Russel Bestley.

It talks about the 4 stages involve in design process based on their research.
1st - Difinition
2nd - Divergence
3rd - Transformation
4th - Convergence

Starting from 1st stage of "Definition" where Design problems are defined and the appropriate data gathered after agreeing on design objectives in the 2nd stage of "Divergence". Once the objectives are all set, prototypings are prepared and they are evaluated in stage 3 of "Transformational". If the tests were not successful revaluation of design objectives takes place. At the final stage of "Convergence", effectuve measures are checked and improvements are recommended.

The book talks more about an introduction to research methodologies in graphic design. The subjects covered are INVESTIGATION, ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, COMMUNICATION, EXPERIMENTATION, AUDIENCE, CRAFT, PRODUCTION, MATERIALS, SYSTEMS, METHOD, PROCESS, SEMIOTICS, SEMANTICS, RHETORIC and DESIGN.