The practice of designing

This post is based on the article "The Future of Design: When you come to a fork in the road, take it" by Don Norman.

I will be answering 4 specific questions that will show my point of view about the article.

Reading the article by Don Norman was really interesting. It makes me think about the future. How the professions are going to work and also how my profession of a designer too.

I have to say that I agree with almost all the content. And I do not agree with the terms "future" and "craft". But I understand his point of view. And what he is trying to aim with those tags names.

1 Which fork in the road would you take craft or future? Why?

Both future and craft. But always prioritizing the “future”. 

Nowadays I consider that a 100% craft design has to be attributed for artworks or people that do things for an entertaining environment. A truly designer is not any more pure craft.

When I interact with any product or service, I become an exigent user. I don’t expect any more a pretty product/service. I want something useful and effective.

“I want something useful and effective.”

I am aware that now we, designers, have the necessary tools and information to develop any product/service in something with good quality and positive impact for the users. The traditional design is behind. With the new technologies, we can’t afford to continue with the same design method. 

As a designer, I can’t ignore that we have changed our priorities when facing a project. Colours, shapes, types, textures are beautiful elements to play with. But most important is for what purpose a designer use them. I think that before, those elements were the main thing for a designer. But now a designer has to go through a longer and detail process to prioritize other issues. Implementing the method of HCD, human-centered-design

As Don Norman mention, the design is the interface between technology and people. That means that we have to reduce our focus in making pleasurable objects and prioritize bigger issues like climate changing, healthcare, education transportation systems… With these issues is not necessary to afford the problem straight fully, but when it comes the time for us to start a project, we should take into account, for example, the climate change factor and design something that does not have any negative impact on our planet.

2. What is the intent of design thinking? 

When talking about design thinking is refer to a new form of design. Consist of a process that focuses on the people needs, taking a different perspective of the issue to maximize the experience of the people when doing any activity, adding value to it. A result is a form of incremental innovation, optimizing the solution through a hill-climbing process.

Some designers practice what is called people-centred design, where the work starts with understanding people’s needs and capabilities. The goal is to devise solutions for those needs, making sure that the end results are understandable, affordable, and, most of all, effective. The design process involves continual interaction with the people who will use the results, making sure their true needs are being addressed, and then continue testing through multiple iterations, starting with crude but informative prototypes, refining them, and eventually ending up with a satisfactory solution.

3. What are the key principles and methods used in this field of practice? 

The design thinking method consists of 5 stages process, these stages are not sequential, and designers can go back and forth.

The various stages of design thinking should be understood as different modes which contribute to the entire design project. The ultimate goal throughout is to derive as deep an understanding of the product and its users as possible.

Stages:

1.Empathize—Research Your Users’ Needs

Empathy requires understanding the pain points and the day by day truth of your target audience.

2.Define—State Your Users’ Needs and Problems

Analyse your observations, gathered during the Empathize stage, and synthesize them to define the core problems you have identified so far. You should always seek to define the problem statement in a human-centred manner. 

3.Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas

It is Brainstorm and comes up with the new creative solution. In this stage, the designer should be starting to “think outside the box” to identify the new creative solution.

4. Prototype—Start to Create Solutions

Is time to produce a number of inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the product. The prototype is built to think and answer questions that get you closer to your final solution

5. Test—Try Your Solutions Out

The purpose of testing is to learn what works and what doesn’t and then iterate. 

My opinion

I don’t completely agree with stage 1 “empathize”. More than empathize we have to focus more on addressing people’s needs and abilities. We must also understand people’s capabilities and their points of view and how to support them. That requires us to understand the wide variety of abilities that people have. We should not fool ourselves into thinking we can get into their heads.

4. How do you foresee design thinking becoming part of your own design practice? 

I already practice the design thinking method when doing a design project. Although I don’t apply it in all my designs, in most of them I used it automatically. I believe that every designer should use this tool or maybe another one but always focusing on the people and not in the technology. 

In these days the design thinking process is effective but in a close future and with the continuous updating of the technology we have to be prepared and ready for others forms or process. 

References from https://jnd.org/the_future_of_design_when_you_come_to_a_fork_in_the_road_take_it/