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One really distinctive characteristic ofdesign is that idea of divergence andconvergence But there's another distinctdevelopment of design or distinctivecharacteristic of design processes whichis that they're fundamentally iterative.You would like to believe that you couldproceed sequentially from defining theproblem,Exploring an alternative, to selecting thesolution.But the reality is that as you exploresolutions, you get greater clarity aboutproblem definition.And as you go to select an, an alternativeor select a plan, you recognize medicionalalternatives and maybe even get additionalclarity around problem definition.In fact, I'm going to show you a littledata here that illustrates the, one of theways in which design is fundamentallyiterative.This is some data collected by Gunther,

that takes the activities of a group ofdesigners over a two-hour period anddivides them into three categories.These categories correspond roughly intoour three steps in the design process,defining the problem or clarifying thetask, exploring then, a searching foralternatives.And lastly, fixing the solution orselecting the plan.And what you see is that, while there isthis overarching cascading from, fromclarifying the task, to exploring

alternatives, to fixing the concept orselecting the approach, you do see thisoverall cascading.You also see a lot of back-and-forth, thatis it isn't the case that the team neverrevisits the clarification of the taskafter beginning to explore for alternate,explore alternatives.And so, design, even over a two- hourperiod ends up being quite iterative.And it's a, it's a bit of amisrepresentation to suggest that thosethree steps in the design process proceed

strictly sequentially.Iteration and design takes place over manydifferent time scales.There's a micro level iteration that takesplace at the hands of an individualdesigner where here, she will go back andmake changes.We'll try something else.We'll learn something and go back.And we'll iterate over minutes, hours,

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days, or weeks in the scope of an, of asingle project.But there's also iteration over multiplelife cycles of an artifact that's producedby a single organization, or even overmultiple generations of a category ofartifact in society as a whole.So, let me just walk you through a littlebit of the history of the ice cream scoop.We started with a,Last time with the fictitious notion thatthe first Egyptian commercial ice creamvendor, Tabia had produced this block ofwood with a, with an iron scoop on it thathad resulted in the first ice cream scoop.Now, of course it didn't happen like that.But we don't know how it, how it actuallyhappened back in the tenth century.But imagine that Tabia, at the very microlevel had decided that the grip wasn'tvery comfortable.And had, had said, well, gee, why don't wejust cut a littles scoop out of that sothat the, the grip would be more

comfortable.That's an example of iteration at themicro level, at the level of an individualdesigner.The first ice cream scoop that I knowabout that's commercially available isthis one here.And the basic idea here was to take thisconical, metallic form, use it to mold ascoop of ice cream or potatoes or otherkinds of, of semisolid materials.And then, there's this, this wing handleon the back that rotates a blade inside

the cone that allows the formed food todrop out.At some point, this design emerged, whichuses a, a hemispherical form to form a,the unit, of the serving unit in the shapeof a, of a half of a ball.And then, has this thumb action, thislittle rock and pinion, and a little bladethat separates the half ball from themold.Now, in subsequent generations, like thisone.The basic principle is quite similar, you

see that the gear has moved to a differentlocation but the main advancement here isthe adoption of lower cost productionmethods, in particular, stamping andforming in order to make these, theseparts.Several generations of designs preceededafter that along the same basic idea andmost of the improvements relate to costreduction, simplification, greater

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ergonomics.This one is die cast aluminum.But has the same basic working principle.At some point, a scoop designer decidedthat, that thumb action wasn't veryergonomic and that it would be much betterto use the full grip.And so, this is a design that relies onthe full grip strength of the user butstill relies on the same blade action tocut the hemispherical unit out of themold.At some point, some decades ago,Someone concluded that there might be away to use the warm scoop, itself, toprevent the sticking of the ice cream intothe mold.And so, this was a design and all aluminumdesign, it's still quite common todayespecially commercially that relies onkind of a shaving action, to form a curlof ice cream, and then relies on the ideathat the large thermal mass of thisaluminum would stay relatively warm and

would allow the ball to separate from the,from the mold.This design also has the idea if you, ifyou shake it, you can sense that there'ssome liquid inside and that's a, a heattransfer fluid of some kind, it might justbe water, I don't know.Then, the idea, at least the story goes,that the warmth form the user's hand isactually conducted into the end of the icecream scoop in order to.Keep it warm and prevent it from sticking.But you'll see in many commercial

establishments.These scoops will sit in a pan of warmwater, in order to keep them, them warm.The Zyliss design in many ways builds on.The success of this approach..It uses the large thermal mass of thisaluminum head and to,, to, to reliablystay warmer than the ice cream, as long asit weren't stored in the freezer.And that, and still uses that curvedsurface to create a curl of ice cream.But then, the warmth of this head allows

the ice cream to separate from the, fromthe curved mold of the, of the headitself.It also has a very ergonomic grip whichallows the operator.The operator's thumb.To apply a downward force which relivessome of the stress on the, on the wrist.So, that's just a short history of icecream scoops over, in our case, over,

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since the tenth century at least in ourfictional narrative.But at least it's the nineteenth centuryin the case of these early scoops and whatyou see is that design creates greatartifacts, not in one step.Typically, not as a result of the actionof a single designer.But rather through successive generationsof products.Where each, each, each designer is able torely on what's known based on priorgenerations of the artifact and to makeimprovements based on a foundation that'sbeen established by others.