The Role of Design
Great design solves the right problem and it’s critical to start off on the right track. Identifying the ‘right problem’ is often only achievable if the design process is engaged early enough with business development to matter. Design’s role is to ask questions, engage the key stakeholders and collect relevant data – to arrive at a well defined problem. It’s only then that design is empowered to create great solutions.
It’s all too common for many designers to be brought into a project late into the schedule to make the product, website, presentation, widget, logo or whatever “look nice”. That can certainly be valuable but what’s missing is that while “form follows function”, you shouldn’t separate the two into distinct efforts (or ignore one side altogether). You’re more likely to position your brand and/or product for success if you allow for the necessary rigor of the design process to fully flesh out and craft the user experience aimed at achieving your goals… before development begins.
Based on my experience, the most successful product launches have followed the same basic recipe of: define, design, build, test, repeat. If not already established, enlist your team leads to define the process that will work for both the designers and the engineers working on the project. Take advantage of existing processes, but be careful not to impose a canned process on the team. For further reading on thoughtful advice on integrating Design Process with Agile software development please see, Clash of the Titans: Agile and UCD. Personally, I lean more towards Activity and Behavior Centered Design processes, rather than User Centered Design. A quick search online will reveal some controversy about blending the design and engineering processes. Ultimately, it’s up to your team to arrive at an agreed plan forward. You can’t avoid today’s reality of shorter release cycles and smaller teams. It will only help to meet this challenge head on.
There is nothing better than being part of a multidisciplinary team that is operating in a zone that transcends pesky task lists and status reports. It’s the feeling of momentum, synergy, creation and the age old saying ‘the sum of the whole is greater than the parts’. Once you’ve gotten a taste of it, you’ll never want to go back!
Another great resource for small and limited teams is The Five Sketches by Jerome Ryckborst. I saw his presentation on ‘ideation, design, and usability for development teams’ at the Vancouver User Experience group.
On the topic of “form follows function”, I recently read an article by Stephen P. Anderson: In Defense of Eye Candy. In a nutshell, he describes that our perception of why we like how something looks actually influences whether we think it functions well. He says a lot of other great stuff too, it’s really worth a read.
And finally, more reading on Redefining User-Centered Design.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas on the role of design and how to empower design to solve the right problem.
Do you have a project that could use the help of design? Contact me to discuss how at jenny[at]missjenny[dot]com.
