Painful Design Truths
Three things to be mindful of when setting yourself up for success.
1. We think of design as though it were the same as art.
However, they actually serve two very distinct and separate purposes. When trying to distinguish between the two, we must ask ourselves the question, “Does the output of what I’m trying to achieve benefit the ego or society more?”. Many times when we look at design solutions, we often critique and weigh feedback as though we were considering a work of art.
While product designing, I’ve always found it useful when delivering and addressing feedback to first ask the question, “What/Who is the input for this requested change?”. If the answer comes from outside of oneself, such as data, customer feedback, or other sources connected to your user community, then it could be surmised that a design problem is being addressed.
2. We love the beginning and the end.
It’s always the most exciting when beginning a project. It’s also equally exciting when we see something completed and started to be used in market.
Spoiler Alert!
It’s actually the middle that counts.
Process is one of the most important parts of Design in terms of insuring that enough validation is occurring.
3. Designers don’t want to learn business.
Design is generally disregarded as a cost center, as opposed to a revenue generator. Due to this perception, design organizations play second-fiddle to other arms of an organization and sit under a product or marketing function.
Balance of being user centric, but also needing to make money. Can have both, and really money is a result of that user centricity. But understanding how the company economic works allows for better collaboration around roadmap and how to effect business for growth, change, and prioritization.
There is a danger that short-term business goals are short sighted. Business goal design.
A while ago there wasn’t an internet. Then we used photoshop and slices, sketched on whiteboards and paper. Sketch and Invision paired up to make a powerful tool set. Now I use Figma almost exclusively. We constantly are exposed to new ways of thinking and new tools to achieve progress.
Summary
Design Thinking reduces ambiguity and subjective feedback loops (do you need to explain this) by involving the customer in real-world expirements. Design Thinking is how we go about identifying problems and then finding creative solutions for them through established human-centered process.
Show the process here when you talk about the process.
Persistence is most important when you are trying something new.
