Someone asked me today, for the future design, what design methods do you know, how to apply? And what methods else you plan to learn?
The following is my short answer to this question:

In my opinion, there are only 2 design method in general, one is the problem-solving model, another is the changing-meaning model.

1.In my study of either industrial design or service design, I was trained to grasp the problem-solving model. It requires designers thinking from Customers/Market.

The general path is: you gather customers demand by some ways (user research like focus group or interview or owned experience; company defines its problem in the beginning of product lifecycle)
Then you do the brainstorm or album inspiration or focus group with leader users to gain the proposal inspiration.
Designers are responsible to transform these inspiration into specific proposal, and test. You iterate your idea based on feedback.

2.While in my study of management engineering, I realize there’s another totally different design method (strictly speaking, innovation method). It origins from meaning changing.

Its path is: for some existing product/product line, you gather new trends/new technique/new lifestyle, whatever with new meaning which makes sense in reality. Then you analyze the existing product, including competitive analysis/5 forces model/value chain etc. to incoduct the characteristic of this product. Then you try to combine or transform the product with new things. Later, you need to make complementary proposals, like marketing/communication.
For example, the candles are just dailylife comsumption before the 2nd industrial revolution, but now candles are used to make atmosphere.

3.These 2 kinds of design methods should subtitud to each other. I mean, with the development of society, users are changing, demands are changing as well. On one hand, designers are ought to keep producing new designs/new proposals, based on problem-solving model. On the other hand, designers should be capable to iterate his previous designs, based on meaning-changing model. Innovation is not new invention, and nearly all innovations are actually successful transplant of one meaning from another.

For instance, the peer-to-peer transaction is normal in the tranditional Visa credit network. But in this digital age, it become a delighter with digital platform.

4.For the future, let’s assume that the AI would be used in gaining design inspirations (I suppose the graphical inspiration is easier), which will decrease designers’ workload. Then I believe that on the basis of these 2 design methods, what designers should learn sustainably is how to combine (inspiration and proposal) or (new meaning and product) in a more suitable way. This kind of combination may be the last skill that relying on human’s innovation, and unable to be replaced by robot.

今天收到一个问题：面向未来的设计，你知道哪些设计方法，如何运用？你还想学习和补充什么设计方法？
以下是我匆匆整理的想法：

我的理论体系内，设计方法只有两种，一个是‘问题-解决’模型，一个是‘意义创新为中心’模型。
1.在工业设计和服务设计的学习中，我被训练的一直是‘问题-解决’模型。也就是从用户/市场出发，大概路径是，通过某种方法确定用户的需求(可以是用户调研，工具不列了；或者是公司内部正常product lifecycle由决策层确定新方向)，然后通过头脑风暴，图集灵感，focus group等方式寻找解决方案的灵感，接着由设计师将灵感具化成若干方案，具化的程度因情况而定，然后测试方案，根据反馈迭代，最终得到解决这一需求的产品(product/service/experience)

2.在管理学习中，我接触到一种新的设计，也就是从产品意义出发，路径是，为了某款已有产品，收集新趋势或新技术应用或新产品，总之是带有新的意义的产品，然后深入研究已有产品，包括竞品分析/五力模型分析等抓住已有产品的若干特点，接着尝试着将新意义和已有产品的特点结合起来，举例如蜡烛从第二次工业革命前的生活必需品转型成现在的氛围营造工具。再之后为产品制定辅助性方案，包括marketing/communication等。

3.这两种设计思路是应该相辅相成的：随着社会的发展，用户不断变化，新需求不断出现。一方面设计师要持续有新输出，基于问题-解决模型，产出新方案新设计。另一方面对以往对输出，设计师也要有能力去迭代，基于意义创新模型。创新不是要新发明，几乎所有的创新都是将某一种成功恰当地移植到另一个产品上，并且可以但不限于同一类，比如电子支付的P2P转账并不是什么新鲜事，VISA等传统信用卡系统也有，但是在这个时代下，与电子平台的碰撞产生了新的火花。

4.未来，假设人工智能能够增加对设计方案灵感的训练(我认为是对设计行业可行性最高的训练)，设计师的工作负担减轻不少。
那么我认为在掌握以上两种设计方法的基础上，设计师要训练的就是如何将(解决灵感+需求)/(新意义+已有产品)结合得更好，这是只能依靠纯粹人类创造力无法被机器学习取代的地方了。