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Preliminary Design Strategy

1. come up with goals

2. start brainstorming different options for system architecture (prototyping) - this doesn’t have to be dependent upon optimal characteristics

3. continue conducting research and testing

4. use findings to inform which options are good and which won’t work

5. choose optimal option and revise design to match optimal characteristics

There is no point in making all of the critical decisions now. Make different prototypes with different designs/architecture so you have options to weigh. Don’t constrain yourself right away without having enough knowledge to determine those constraints. Making constraining decisions at the beginning without sufficient knowledge is premature, and those decisions can turn out to be the wrong decisions later on. Also, holding design to wait on optimal characteristics to be determined allows no actual progress on design to happen. Having a rough prototype that you can revise later to match optimal characteristics gives you a head start.