Almost Every Single Thing That We Use Is (/was) Designed At Some Point Of

Almost every single thing that we use is (/was) designed at some point of time; things that we take for granted were once designed and engineered. Design is an integral part of us and our society and is united in almost everything and anything we do and we use.
Designing any thing starts with an idea, any idea good or bad. The main job of designers is to reform this idea so that it is understandable for the people who need to work on it and manufacture it, sort of a blue print. Whether it is a multi billion dollar dam or a small fashion hair pin, the process of creating them is all the same and involves almost the same basic general steps. Before we discuss these steps, it is important for us to understand why designing is done on the first place?
Designing is a very important and basic step in any product. To deliver a product, there are many steps involved. There are scientists who invent new technologies, engineers who use these technologies to develop various components, manufactures that use these components in manufacturing different products and finally marketers who take the prime role behind delivering the product. But who is going to coordinate their efforts to produce a desirable and successful product, no one else but the designers. They are the people who understand what the customer want and deliver a mechanism to make it happen.
Designing is not just what we read in magazines which depict it as mostly involved with fashion industry. No that is not at all the case it involves a lot of insight into the way customer thinks and wants his product. As I mentioned earlier, everything that we use was designed at some point of time. There are some very important things that every design is supposed to follow, a brief list of which is as follows:
User requirements: The very first and most important aspect a designer has to consider is user. In this world where the number of competitors for a product is more than the product itself, there are very few designs which are being accepted into user community. The main reason behind their success being complete satisfaction of customers. The very first step of any design process is to know what exactly customers want?
Creativity: Next comes creativity. When the designer knows what the customer wants, he has to create some thing new; he just can't give the same old stuff which just satisfies the needs. If I am buying a camera, being a picky customer I wouldn't buy any camera that can take a snap of me, NO, I want so many other things which may be I will not even dream of using, but still I want them in my camera. That is how customers think and that is what exactly designers provide. Innovation has to be there in a product without which there is no value to it. Designers explore all the different combinations in which a product can be designed and seek new methods in doing so. The stranger it is the better.