Final answer:
At the initial design phase, thinking and writing should be done at a conceptual level, with extensive brainstorming and exploration of a wide range of ideas and potential solutions. The composition process is recursive and outlining is critical for maintaining clear, coherent language and meaningful transitions in writing.
Step-by-step explanation:
During the initial phases of design, we should be thinking and writing at a highly conceptual level. This involves exploring a wide variety of ideas and potential solutions to the design problem at hand. As we do this, it's common to move simultaneously and maybe even haphazardly through the different stages of the composition process, from planning to revising to editing to drafting, and back to planning again.
Outlining is essential to writing well and planning your writing. Even as your plan evolves while learning more about your topic and understanding your own ideas, starting with a broad outline helps in visualizing how different ideas interact or diverge. This aids in maintaining a coherent flow in writing, providing readers with clear and coherent language, and enabling easy navigation from section to section with linked concepts and meaningful transitions.
During this initial design phase, it's important to brainstorm alternative solutions extensively. Casting a wide net for ideas can come from various sources, such as existing products, innovative concepts, or scientific principles. The key is to then refine these ideas, eliminating those with limited potential and focusing on the ones that best meet the requirements and constraints of the design problem.