Digging this after dinner and saw these further details of the Bike Sharing system. Like it lots. Far better than the initial presentation that I've posted earlier. Am wondering why the bics are hanging on tall posts ? Shall dig further..
A really unique design in its own right serving the ease of slotting your bike in; but it may pose safety problems for pedestrians. Would have been better suited in a science park / gardens where leisure cycling is common.
Solar Roadways
Engineers at Solar Roadways, a renewable energy start-up based in Idaho, have completed a prototype for a multi-layered, energy-generating road surface. The company says that when installed, Solar Roadway would generate and store energy through photovoltaic (PV) cells, each cell capable of managing it’s own electricity generation, storage and distribution. The energy could be used to heat the road during a snow-storm, control lighting and displays via LED lighting, or help distribute additional signals such as phone and internet through a base plate layer featuring microprocessors. A translucent, high-strength surface layer would protect the electronics from the traffic and weather above.
There are lots of inevitable questions to follow up on the concept: sustainability aside, how cheap would PV panels and LED lights have to be to make this a cost-effective replacement for petroleum-based asphalt? With each cell being an individual unit, how would maintenance and replacement work? The ambition and optimism of Solar Roadways is impressive (see their list of benefits, proposals for use in military applications and global communications), though implementation seems a little hazy at this stage. Still, it’s great that people are reflecting creatively on the sustainability of roads.
(via Inhabitat)
March 19, 2010 Posted by freshkillspark | FKP | Design, renewable energy, sustainability | No Comments Yet
This is one of the many examples of technology+design creativity making the real change. Like this concept very much and it could have been in better use in tropical places where the solar energy is very abundant.
The Future of Design Stanford Conference
Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum on March 19, 2010
I’m going to give a 5 minute talk on the future of design on Friday to spark conversation within a terrific group of design thinkers from around the world. Banny Banerjee, director of the Stanford Design Program is putting it on. I first met Banny at a conference in India put on by the National Institutes of Design.
Here are my thoughts on where Design/Thinking is going and should be going—and what is needed to get there. They are designed to provoke. Let me know what you think.
Point of View: Designing A Post-Liberal Arts Paradigm—Innovation Arts
The creation of a new belief system—Innovation Arts—to replace the prevailing Liberal Arts paradigm should be the next stage in the evolution of Design/Thinking. A world of constant, cascading change and the failure of existing social organizations requires a shift from the prevailing Liberal Arts paradigm that trains individuals how to make sense of an existing world based on past knowledge and reifying society to a new paradigm that trains people how to build new social systems based on deep knowledge of current cultural rituals and behaviors while embedding action in social, economic and political context. An Innovation Arts paradigm would also form the foundation of a post-Neo-Liberal economic theory that reconnects elites to real business context rather than the quantified financialization of business functions, focuses on value in network relationships and group social behavior and educates people to make rather than consume.
Three Future Directions for the Advancement of Design
1—Develop a mature culture of criticism. If it is to evolve into a mature intellectual system of thought, Design has to create a critical, self-reflexive literature. Design’s public discourse remains aspirational, narrow and secretive. Despite an emphasis on the importance of failure in prototyping and learning, little actual discussion of failure exists. Despite a focus on practice, very little is revealed of what really occurs in consultancy or corporate design practice. The RCA and SVA have just started MFAs in Design Criticism. We need more challenging conversations on both Practice and Theory. And we desperately need a powerful HBR of Design Thinking, anchored in an academic institution. Suggestions? Business or Design School?
2- Build Human Centered Design Tool Kits for Political Policy Makers. Design has focused recently on creating how-to design kits for NGOs to operate at the Bottom-of-the-Pyramid level in Asia and Africa. Building how-to kits for policy-makers at the Top-of-the-Pyramid level in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia is equally important and challenging. The First World is the new Third World and needs Design Thinking to redesign itself. Design’s venue is expanding from product to experience to systems to policy. Policy is the new edge in Design and it speaks to domestic as well as foreign human needs.3- The “as if….” perspective of ritual, serious play and the making of the new embodied in the Innovation Arts paradigm is already dominant in much of Generation Y culture. Gen Y has much to teach and much to do. In an effort to understand and activate the Gen Y demographic, Parsons is launching a Gen Y Research Institute. It will focus on deep understandings of Gen Y culture as represented by the global student body at Parsons and provide a public stage and financing for the products and services created by these students. A global collaborative of Gen Y research efforts would be hugely productive.
Reading this commentary by Nussbaum and company and had to add a very quick comment: 'Unless we take into consideration a radical change in design thinking, we will not solve any problems with real value-added and sustainable solutions.'
People are talking about different types of thinking and even morph into thinking hybrids when we may well possibly need just one - 'sanity and ethical thinking.'
Too much problems arise because we don't think in the right direction for different problems. And very often the real root of most problems is 'human nature'. The way I see it is that people do not really want to hit at the moral problems at different levels for many reasons. Either being really dogmatic or being really selfish. Perhaps we need to rethink about how we treat different problems at varying degrees. Maybe what we need to think is just being level to everyone else. Specific classification of thinking may create class disparities as far as solving real needs is concerned. Unless we stop thinking about intellectual ego, we will forever have this persistent problem of 'not doing the right thing' for the environment at large.
Best wishes !
My followed up thought to the blog post by Brian Ling at his Design Sojourn Blog on why there are few remarkable products in the market , after reading their comments that products are made so because of how things are made. Though true in its own right, it also does set limitations to finding value-added traits for the product that would set it apart from the generic. In my earlier post to the same blog topic at Design Sojourn, I had mentioned about hiring the right minds. I think that is one of the most major reasons why products are so ordinary and not extraordinary. It's often true that a company's innovative success is dependent largely on the quality of employees. The examples are many, and I would not want to pin point which ones are the failing or failed establishments. But looking at the successful ones, one could easily identify brilliant minds to remarkable success. Human resource could either make or break the establishment apart from getting the right leader to strategise and lead the production team. This isn't really new, but I am often surprised that this is not often the cited reasons. At least not in a direct way. I often focus on human resouce as I do not like any kind of politics to run the show - simply because once you've got a rat in the team; your chances of getting above the mediocre line is really small. You may well be threading on a fine line that could break anytime. Nevermind a brilliant product of any kind.
Henceforth, despite product forms and function are done so because of a certain product / service culture; latent needs that are yet to be founded via a keen mind is very much the main creative source. Thus making products differently and making it an added value which spells 'remarkable'.
While read and reviewed by many already, this piece takes a critical look at Tim Brown’s “Change by Design” and Roger Martin’s “The Design of Business” for significant contributions and potential misses. When the topic of “design thinking” had gained enough momentum for BusinessWeek to devote an entire issue to design in 2004, it was a siren song to me. Newly converted, I digested everything I could find. Design thinking seemed to cover most of the experiential clues I’d been collecting as the means to improve business potential.
By 2006 an IIT Institute of Design interview with Roger Martin, titled “Designing Decisions,” told of his conversion to the concept when noting the language and behaviors of designer friends. That same year, Tim Brown presented fundamental thoughts on design thinking that also caught my attention.
But none of it was enough to satisfy me, so I convinced colleagues to help host a 2007 Design Thinking conference in Dallas, just to talk about it. We extended that conversation via a LinkedIn group that has grown to more than 2,500 members worldwide [as of this posting, 3000 members].
Discussions on the LinkedIn group noted an increase in attention to design thinking, particularly in 2009. Martin was either speaking or hosting conversations with other members, while Brown issued a challenge to “move from design to design thinking” via a 2009 TED presentation. By the end of the year both Martin and Brown had released books on the topic.
Same Song, Different Verses
Both texts are extensions of each author’s continuous and evolving messages. Each approaches the same subject from a different perspective.In The Design of Business, Martin expands on what I’ve labeled the “Design Thinking Continuum” which he described in the winter 2003 issue of Rotman Magazine, under the same title [pdf].
Martin took this continuum to a new level in a 2007 IIT-ID presentation when he talked about the significance of shifting from a focus on reliability to viability (which I summarized in Reliability vs. Validity). He expands on this duality throughout his book, in the context of specific business examples.
Martin’s thesis for business: “Design-thinking firms stand apart in their willingness to engage in the task of continuously redesigning their business. They do so with an eye to creating advances in both innovation and efficiency—the combination that produces the most powerful competitive edge.”
Brown’s book, Change by Design, struck a chord similar to that of his 2006 presentation, which highlighted principles necessary for the practice of design thinking. He notes why business interests have turned to design: “Innovation has become nothing less than a survival strategy.” Later in the book he adds this emphasis: “Design thinking may be one of the most profitable practices a corporation can adopt during a recession.”
Change by Design builds upon a theme that both Brown and Martin embrace: “The natural evolution from design doing to design thinking reflects the growing recognition on the part of today’s business leaders that design has become too important to be left to designers.”
Good Vibes
Neither book stands alone. Tim covers more of the practical elements of applying design thinking (some of the ‘binary code’) and Roger focuses more on the models to frame the activities (the algorithms and heuristics).In select passages from Brown’s repertoire, he illustrates how design thinking moves design into a more strategic role to unleash “its disruptive, game-changing potential”:
Empathy: “Perhaps the most important distinction between academic thinking and design thinking… The mission of design thinking is to translate observations into insights and insights into products and services that will improve lives.”
Collaboration: “We need to invent a new and radical form of collaboration that blurs the boundaries between creators and consumers…. For the design thinker, it has to be ‘us with them.’”
Synthesis: “The creative process…relies on synthesis, the collective act of putting the pieces together to create whole ideas…to sift through it all and identify meaningful patterns.”
Biomimicry and intelligent design: “Nature, with its 4.5-billion-year learning curve, may have something to teach us about things….”
Optimism and trust: Design thinking relies on an “attitude of experimentation,” supported by a “climate of optimism…Optimism requires confidence, and confidence is built on trust.”
Visual thinking: “Words and numbers are fine, but only drawing can simultaneously reveal both the functional characteristics of an idea and its emotional content.”
Prototypes and storyboards: “…thinking with my hands…” Brown also offers specific examples on where and how to apply design thinking:
Transactions and touchpoints: “Describing a customer journey…clarifies where the customers and the service or brand interact. Every one of these ‘touchpoints’ points to an opportunity to provide value….”
Engineering experiences: “An experience must be as finely crafted and precision-engineered as any other product.... Unlike a manufactured product or a standardized service, an experience comes to life when it feels personalized and customized.”
Innovative approach: “Many companies have shifted the horizon of their research programs from long-term basic research to shorter-term applied innovation…. Eventually it will be as natural to see innovation labs in service-sector companies as it is to see research and development facilities in manufacturing companies.”
Not business as usual: “We…set out to train companies in our methods of human-centered, design-based innovation: user observations, brainstorming, prototyping, storytelling, and scenario building…. [This] is not the most effective way to proceed. Innovation needs to be coded into the DNA of a company…P&G…designated a chief innovation officer, increased the number of design managers by more than 500 percent, built the P&G Innovation Gym…and elevated innovation and design to core strategies of the company.”
New relationships: “Design thinking is being applied at new scales in the move from discrete products and services to complex systems.… We are entering an era of limits; the cycle of mass production and mindless consumption that defined the industrial age is no longer sustainable…. Design thinking needs to be turned toward the formulation of a new participatory social contract…. We’re all in this together.”
Embracing complexity: “When it comes to colonies of humans, we have to reckon with additional factors of individual intelligence and free will…. Instead of an inflexible, hierarchical process that is designed once and executed many times, we must imagine how we might create highly flexible, constantly evolving systems in which each exchange between participants is an opportunity for empathy, insight, innovation, and implementation.” Repeatedly, design is compared and contrasted with design thinking: “Design is about delivering a satisfying experience. Design thinking is about creating a multipolar experience in which everyone has the opportunity to participate in the conversation.”
Dissonant Passages
I’m quite comfortable mucking around in concepts, which are far more critical to the design of transactions and services than to products you can see and touch. Martin focuses on concepts as a means to help others apply design thinking to things like business strategy.I’m not as comfortable, however, with the way Martin shares his concepts. The book was bumpy—it lacked the natural flow of his other works, and seemed ill sequenced. The strongest lead-in for the book started in Chapter 4—design thinking in the context of the P&G story—with supporting details in Chapter 3. Then Chapter 5 introduces the critical context for the trade-off between validity and reliability, with supporting details in Chapter 2.
Chapter 1 starts off with a “new” concept, a “knowledge funnel,” that is referenced throughout the book. It takes the original design continuum (referenced earlier) and aligns each part to a funnel starting with “mystery” as the widest part. For me, the funnel detracts from the original concepts, as the funnel forces something that was once fluid and unidirectional into a very linear concept. The additive value of the funnel is not apparent.
This is unfortunate because Martin’s concepts are not only relevant, they’re also interrelated in ways that provide a powerful framework for assessing and applying design thinking (as illustrated below in the “Design Thinking Framework”). The mystery continuum has a direct correlation to validity and reliability. Note how the left and the right of the various continuums in the following diagram correspond directly to one another.
This collection mimics the left and right of a long-standing, powerful model: yin and yang. Just as with the yin/yang model, design thinking works to embrace the dichotomy—embracing both sides at once to create a new “middle.” But business tends to believe that the goal is to move toward the right. As a result, businesses are predominantly over-yang’d. Design thinking provides a means to restore the natural power inherent in the balance.
Martin’s writing circles back on itself often and poses contradictions. He speaks repeatedly of a balance: “Design thinkers seek to balance validity and reliability.” Then in the diagram of the “Design thinker’s personal knowledge system,” the first label states: “1. My world is reliability oriented.” I got the distinct impression that Martin kept commingling references to designers with design thinking.
Perhaps Martin simply lacked having the benefit of a strong co-author like Tim Brown had: “My silent partner Barry Katz, through his skillful use of words, made me appear more articulate than I really am.”
Unresolved Passages
Other critics have suggested that neither author sufficiently communicated how to apply design thinking. With a deep reliance on the context of a problem, I’m not sure that anyone can “prescribe” enough of an approach to satisfy these detractors. My guess is that people still need help figuring out how the parts and pieces apply in various situations (if anything, this was where Martin excelled, as he gave example after example as to how the validity versus reliability continuum applied).Neither author sufficiently addressed the following:
The design question. Martin has addressed the relevance of asking “why” in past articles, and Brown mentions it briefly in his summary. “A willingness to ask ‘Why?’ will annoy your colleagues…but…it will improve the changes of spending energy on the right problems.” But it is through repeated inquiry that the core design question is identified. In an earlier book, David Kelly gives a perfect example of not getting the question right (though his example is intended as a positive one). In the redesign of a water bottle for bikers, IDEO did not start with a non-product question, such as: “How do we deliver fluids to an individual who may have one or both hands busy?” If they had asked this question, they would have invented the water bladder years earlier.
The significance of failure. While both authors heartily supported the significance of discovery by failure (failing faster), and cultures that support such, neither addressed the significance of failure as a starting point for design discovery and the relevance of accommodating exceptions in solutions (embracing failure as part of the solution).
Embracing the in-between. Late in his book, Brown notes in passing, “It is precisely in the interstitial spaces…that the most interesting opportunities lie.” That is the sweet spot for design thinking. It is both in-between and comprehensive at the same time. It is the dichotomy, the paradox. In his book, Martin erroneously assigned the paradox to the mystery: “Starting at this paradox – this mystery…”. Design thinking’s strength is in embracing the paradox, considering possibilities across all of the dimensions of the Design Thinking Continuum. How is that possible? By delivering solutions that most appropriately apply binary code to the repeatable actions that no one wants to be bothered with, algorithms to repeatable yet variable things, heuristics where human judgment can help with exceptions, and a healthy dose of mystery to continuously question all assumptions. It’s effectively no different than applying the concepts of integrative thinking -- which Martin supports in his earlier book “The Opposable Mind” – across the Design Thinking Continuum.
Curtain Call
In the end, both books—and both authors—contribute significantly to the discipline of design thinking. My armchair recommendation for practitioners is to leverage both books. If your goal is to share the value of design thinking with others, I’d suggest Brown’s book over Martin’s.
Received this thoughtful blog entry via @postinddes at linkedin. Something to add on to what we have read from Tim Brown and Roger Martin.
I love this highly interactive kitchen. There are a few design philosophies for the kitchen that drew my attention -mainly those who believe in a holistic environmental approach, where you include the entire kitchen culture, moving from one surface to another; and secondly a belief that kitchen cooking chores could be done within a compact product thats saves working space. (as in the Philips multifunctional rice cooker that I just stumbled upon recently)
I haven't seen incorporated concept where traditional tools are incorporated into a highly advanced IT interface, which often puzzles me. Perhaps its due cultural differences as these products are usually design in Europe. Asians prefer a touch of tradition when it comes to cooking especially to soups and certain dishes. Philips' concept for the HD4777 puts in 30 presets for consumers to make different dishes from baking, stewing and down to making your own yogurt. Its great space saving idea.
Concept, style, interface and finish often incorporating green technolgies and computed interfaces are now the in-trend as a global culture for cooking. What most products appear to neglect are subtle or even obvious individual differences between cultures. I often wonder why.
Top of the class intellectual presentation that revolves around fundamentally about biomimicry. The talk is successfully informative with new findings but I was and still am wondering how the computational aspects would turn out forms in a more creative way. She cited a critical point that nature is a grand materials engineer, and that creative human intervention could patch up what nature lacks and give new forms. I enjoy very much reading into the presentation on an academic level and that stimulated a lot of thinking. But somehow I feel she sunk too much in depth on materials and the computational process. Correct me if I'm wrong. But that is the impression I have.
Her detailed talk on how function is validated via computational method to invent form is a very thought provoking idea. I often feel that nature is unique and trying to computate every natural aspect of it is still almost impossible as its more complex than said. Nature is my view consists not only the physical but also the metaphysical aspects in which no computer can calculate the values. In that sense, I doubt the efficiency. The talk deals with how to think in a natural way to design multifuncational products, which is the trend now in product design. Many more products are focusing on multi functional ideas via engineering. The talk has great aspirations that I really like. It defines nature and how we could design in a sustainable way with respect to what great masters had set in; and how advanced technology in this centuray could value add these ideas. The introduction to interesting materials makes this video very note worthy albeit with pending questions on the efficiency of this thinking methodolgy. I think its a little on the linear aspect.
My modest two cents for the evening.
I quote what Tom Murray, a senior designer with Black & Decker said on his blog here:
I happened to somehow stumble onto the idea of searching for Black and Decker stuff on Twitter and found a ton of info on our products, which may or may not have been undiscovered. It’s 2010 now. I can update my website via text message , find a date with a few key strokes, or order pizza with the my pinky and see it arrive via satellite on a map.
Welcome to the digital age.
So I also stumbled onto the Iphone and it’s almost endless string of apps that feed me more information that I can feasibly handle. This is a screenshot of Tweetdeck, just one of many of the dozens of tools that you can search Twitter on to find content in what subject interests you. If you look below you can see that am searching for industrial design and fixie’s. Two of my favorite subjects
So if you have watched any news in the last year you might hear the word Twitter. Don’t scoff just because you are over the age of 40. Twitter won’t hurt you. It is nice like a kitten. To sum up, it is just a text message database of billions of text messages to Twitter. They just happened to be cataloging and making them searchable.
So to summarize again. People who have cell phones. If they set up a Twitter account, they can text message to a secret number their “tweet”. Their tweet is now searchable and indexable and ther Twitter username now followable.
So to summarize the title, design research can be just a question into Twitter about a specific product. Maybe you have to develop a hashtag to follow your design subject. Maybe you can just search for your specifc product in twitter just to see see what people say. There can be many more ways to search for information. I am just point out the obvious. It’s kinda up to you to evolve it. This post will probably be obsolete by the time you read it. But keeping searching for information, its probably there.
Posted a comment, shall put this on my blogs too:
Identified this additional source for research thouygh I wouldn't say
twitter is a way of research due to the authencity of information as well as the credibility of certain sources.Not all info are accurate. But I like
twitter. Its indexing method is very effective as a very useful
directory. With instant access to millions of people, it is a formidable
research tool though not exactly exclusive. You can also interact with
different people from various disciplines. Call this live research in
real time, I value the tacit knowledge that we could all use. Very neat
access to a lot of info !
I was hoping to listen how they get around financial aspects. Seems to me that not many are willing/neglect to divyulge much in this area during their presentations. But Adam Lowry's educational background also confirms my belief that conventional design / probably applied to many other disciplines, do need many other special areas to succeed.
Perhaps the mentality is different, or maybe the understanding of different environments in different countries can change the style of innovation and business styles too. Leave you to listen to his talk. It's nonetheless very useful.
Thanks for visiting and please keep in touch? ~ D.T.
It’s quite simple really.
Our industrialized economy, founded on mass manufacturing and economies of scale spurred by consumerism, is the greatest enemy of remarkable products.
Of course many products will come close, in fact many will be hailed as fantastic or even great, but the truly remarkable will be few and far between.
People striving to create awesomely remarkable products can do so because it is actually quite straightforward. Unfortunately it rarely happens, as making remarkable products is a constant uphill battle against the basic machinery that makes it all happens.
Lets take a look and see why.
1) Manufacturing bland
The whole objective of mass manufacturing is to get economies of scale when you manufacture large volumes of product. So what does this means?You build standardized products with as many common parts as possible. Or take this to the next level by making products with as many off the shelf components as possible. Take a look at the computer industry and you can see this glaring problem. Pretty much everything looks the same and differentiation ends up being very superficial.
2) Race to the bottom
One of the big advantages of economics of scale is a product made as cheap as possible by a repetitious and standardized process. Why is this important?It is a big race to the bottom in terms of price. Contract manufacturers are pressured to reduce their cost by ensuring pricing efficiency and sufficiency. Products are built to a level of specification that most consumers are willing to pay. This is then balanced off with the cost and margin a brand is willing to accept.
This is to avoid situations, for example, where groups of people will not be interested to pay more for, say, a mobile phone with camera when all they need is a straight forward phone.
So in a product creation process like this, why then anyone go the extra mile for an awesome function or spec when it will be just considered a nice to have or not appeal to the market majority?
3) Products that do too much
On the other end of scale from the previous point, designers often get sucked into creating products, designs, forms, or shapes etc. that try to appeal to as many people as possible.In essence, we end up with products that try to be everything and the kitchen sink. This is also often comes as a response to unfocused marketing stories that try to unsuccessfully satisfy as many consumers’ needs as possible.
4) We threw out the baby with the bath water
Gordan Ramsey said (via Contrast):
“It doesn’t matter how amazing the steak is, if it’s served on a cold plate it’s crap. If it’s served with a dull knife it’s crap. If the gravy isn’t piping hot, it’s crap. If you’re eating it on an uncomfortable chair, it’s crap. If it’s served by an ugly waiter who just came in from a smoke break, it’s crap. Because I care about the steak, I have to care about everything around it. “
These days it is getting extremely difficult for designers to manage the entire design development process because organizations decided (about 10+ years ago) not be vertically integrated and outsourced much of their (lower value) down stream development processes. This helped organizations reduce overheads, costs and increase efficiency, especially if the process moved outhouse was manufacturing.
The net effect of contract manufacturing or contract “everything” for that matter, is the loss of control. It is hard, not impossible, to regain this control and ensure the integrity of a design solution through out the development process, but you need extremely passionate, dedicated and persistent team that don’t come a dime a dozen
———-
So I hope we can now see that the environment we design products in, leans towards encouraging the creation of watered down products with little innovation and poor differentiation.
What do we do now?
I’m not asking you to go against industrialization or the contract manufacturing process as it has many benefits, what we need to change is our mindsets and decide if we are happy with acceptable products that just meets everyone’s requirements, or strive to create remarkable products that go beyond what people expect and accept that it will appeal to fewer people.
If you ever had a doubt about designing fewer, focused, but exceptional products. Check out this quote by Apple’s COO Tim Cook (via Seth Godin):
“This is the most focused company I know of, am aware of, or have any knowledge of… We say no to good ideas every day.” Cook then pointed out to analysts that every single product the company makes would fit on the single conference table in front of him. “And we had revenue last year of $40 billion.”
Ahh…is it not great how design can do so much more when design is doing less?
Just posted at deseignsojourn about why there are so few great products. My modest take in the comments section on the actual webpage:
'chipping in late at night: I think all the above factors could boil down to one main reason: hiring. Design is mainly dependent on fine thinking and wise hiring of the best minds. Probably this may sound pessimistic but I often feel that bad products are there because we have wrong hiring objectives. Worse if one takes in individual (politicking) objectives into hand.
When inferior minds are hired, don't expect remarkable products because one simply cannot become remarkable via unremarkable minds.
Also remarkable products can only derived from an clear mind. Not a mind that is busy of how to get the best of just yourself and your peers. Its about getting the best into the team that counts.
Hope I've made sense..'
Actually this floating concept isn't exactly new. The first time I saw a similar concept was about 5 years ago at an conference, designed by the Germans. I will try to see if they put it up online. Their structure was simple, large yet very sophisticated. As sea level rises, the auto response to the problem is to think off land. But the design process leads to varied versions. What they should have designed is a system that allows people to escape the ultimate climate collapse. The weather that we have now may well prompt drastic and sudden disasters. In such events, where could victims go? I have thought of it and am working on one. Not an easy project but I try it in my own spare time.
Over the past couple of years, we refined our agile and collaborative design process to reduce feedback loops and include our clients in the design process. The outcome is our current method, which we call D3: Deep Dive Design.
Prior to D3, we used a communication-intensive process where we involved clients and users in the input and output of each design iteration: vision, usability metrics, stories, tasks, requirements, brainstorming, sketches, wireframes, and visual designs. The earlier and more frequently we communicated, the better quality designs we got, and the happier clients and users were.
We then thought about raising the communication bar further, and wondered what it would be like to have clients as active participant in the design process. So we decided to spend four days on-site with our clients. During that week, we meet with the marketing, business and engineering team members, and we worked on the following:
- Day 1: Vision, success metrics, user research and stories.
- Day 3: Task flow and requirements
- Day 4: Ideation and brainstorming
- Day 5: Design explorations and sketching
Together, we create persona cards, storyboards, flow diagrams, high level requirements, idea backlog, and lots of design sketches. The process is typically recorded and notes/sketches are captured for further refinement.
The outcome of the Deep Dive week is a set of sketches that we iterate on, and use as input for the interaction and visual design stages. Because we are agile, we divide our engagement into small contracts that are scoped and estimated separately. This reduces risk on both sides, and eliminates the need to have change orders applied to statements of work.
The deep dive method has the following advantages:
- Hearing our clients share their dreams, their vision and motivation proved to be a great bonding exercise. Being on the same page is the best starting point. We fully get the WHAT and the WHY behind the project, and we become part our client%u2019s story.
- Our design process becomes fully transparent to the client. They learn our language, and they later use the same vocabulary to communicate feedback and requests.
- The client gets a very good idea about how the design vision aligns with the rest of the product, and insights into many of the design detail that will be delivered over the following weeks.
- We found that everyone in the client%u2019s team can be a great design thinker, if they are placed in the right environment and provided with the right tools and vocabulary to express their ideas. They see how easy it is to capture ideas in crude sketch format, and how to express designs visually and effectively.
- Team members go home with hands-on design training that they continue to use going forward.
- D3 is ideal for scrum and agile teams as they get to see the big picture while working on the detail. They don%u2019t just remember feature designs; they remember users and stories as well. Later on, they use personas and stories to reference features that they are working on.
- Because the process leverages everyone%u2019s input, all team members see their contributions in the final design.
- Everyone%u2019s feedback is immediately considered, and alternative designs are created on the spot if one design direction proves to be technically challenging.
- At the end of the week, everyone is more excited about getting started with the prototyping process. We start the week on the same page: the problem, and we wrap it up also on the same page: the solution.
its like first year undergrad work but this visualisation makes a very concise description of the design process. In this case, minimal pain, plenty of gains.
P.S : there are many things in the world that requires detailing & research in the unknowns. But we need not overdo it in most cases. Hope I've made sense.
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