Prosthetic Leg Project SJSU Industrial Design 2:53

Industrial design, the design of mass-produced consumer products. Industrial designers, often trained as architects or other visual arts professionals, are usually part of a larger creative team. Their primary responsibility is to help produce manufactured items that not only work well but please the eye and, therefore, have a competitive advantage over similar products. The work of an industrial designer often relates to or includes graphic design, such as advertising and packaging, corporate imagery and branding, and interior design (also called interior architecture or environmental design), the arrangement of man-made spaces.

An interesting and somewhat extensive essay on design synthesis. Extensive references and links.
"Designers, as well as those who research and describe the process of design, continually describe design as a way of organizing complexity or finding clarity in chaos. Jeff Veen, founder of Adaptive Path, has noted that "Good designers can create normalcy out of chaos.""