I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how designers design and why and have been exploring several areas within this topic. This post starts at the beginning with a look at the basics of the design process when it comes to designing for people whether it’s architecture, outdoor public space or products, it all follows the same formula.

I really enjoyed the TED talk from Paul Bennett, a creative director at the design and innovation company IDEO who believes, as I do, that design can make the world a better place. I think it’s a great place to kick off this whole thought surrounding design for people. According to TED he says “‘Small is the new big,’ and his design approach reflects this philosophy. For often, it’s not the biggest ideas that have the most impact, but the small, the personal, and the intimate.”

His talk, split into four chapters, is based around analyzing what and how people do things and to then design based on that. Instead of trying to change people, change the way things work for people. The first chapter has the brilliant and very British title, “The blinding glimpse of the bleeding obvious” which discusses those solutions that stare you in the face to the point where you almost miss them.

IDEO was asked by a healthcare system to describe to them the patients experience. The client was then shocked when they came back with a video instead of some sort of powerpoint presentation with all sorts of charts and bubble diagrams. The video was over 6 minutes of simply staring at the ceiling tiles because, in the hospital, that is truly the real user experience.

image via Lisa Town

Bennett says that it is “looking at the situation from the position of the person out as opposed to the traditional situation of the organization in.” This is such brilliant sentence that appeals to all forms of design and something far too often missed. For the people at the hospital it was then a huge realization that it wasn’t about this massive change but rather about small details that can make a huge impact. Simple gestures.

The second chapter was titled directly from a quote from the Buddha, “Finding yourself in the margins”. This part of the talk looks at the edges of things, going beyond blanket vision and blanket solutions and extending your vision all the way out into the peripheral zone. Look around, watching how people work and interact and being careful to pick up on even the tiniest of human gestures in order to dictate how to design things for that user. Seeing things in the world and using them to create new opportunities.

IDEO’s Jane Fulton Suri has an interesting book called Thoughtless Acts?: Obeservatons on Intuitive Design that covers this very thinking of really seeing what people respond to, how they interact with the space around them. The things that people do that have huge intention and huge opportunity. We all communicate with each other in a highly visual way, subconciously, without even realizing what we’re doing. Bennett says it well, “People design their own experiences, you can draw from this.”

I like the image below of the guy following the line in the Japanese subway. It reminded me of a particular subway stop in Mexico City which is right at a hospital, I think the only subway in the world that has a subway stop literally at a hospital, and there were lines like this at the stop. They were textured and meant for the blind to find their way from the subway car to the hospital. But I found many people, including myself, compelled to walk along it.

image via thoughtlessacts

The third section he calls, “Having Beginner’s Mind” and calls this “unthinking situations and looking at things afresh.” My favorite example he gave was of his friend who was a designer at Ikea and charged with the task of coming up with a storage solution for children. The first thing he noticed was that children don’t interact with the world in the same way that adults do. They don’t automatically think of putting things up in shelving units. He immediately started looking at the world like a child, doing things that they do like crawling under tables. (Or in my case when I was a kid, turning a dining room table into an entire fort ;-) He then came up with a solution that looks absolutely nothing like the famous Billy bookcase or anything even remotely resembling a bookcase. But instead, it a solution that goes under things that children can hang items like stuffed animals from.

“Reframing the ordinary” and looking at things through the users perspective, getting into their shoes and using that information to fuel solutions.

image via petit_kchou

The last section is called “Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win” or “where do we start, how do we start and what do we do to start?”

This really gets into my frustration with those designers out thre that design in their own bubble and create this artistic, scultpural form that is then placed into the space producing no relationship with it’s surrounding whatsoever. The object itself could be exquisite but if it doesn’t work and people don’t know what to do with it, it fails whereas a solution that may not be as sexy works because of it’s intuitive design that deivers what the user needs and wants and fits within it’s intended environment.

This ends on a great note in bringing it all home with saying that, as designers we need to start with the user, tranfer ourselves to their world and look for the solution through their eyes. Before trying to get all fancy, think about what the user is doing and what they truly need, not just what might look, feel, smell or sound cool.

And if you have a few minutes, check out the original talk from Paul Bennett at the top of this post.

Earlier this month VIA Architecture presented The Great Debate, a public event for Seattle and Vancouver to duke it out regarding their urban environments from all angles, addressing the here and now as well as presenting new and challenging ideas for future transformation. The debates happened over two days and in both cities: June 16th in Vancouver and June 18th in Seattle. The debators are Vancouver’s Gordon Price and Seattle’s Peter Steinbruek along with questions taken from the audience and those submitted on the internet.

Videos have just been posted on both of the debates and interesting to see the arguments regarding each city and how each city views the other, see below for the full videos from VIA Architecture.

Round One, June 16th – Vancouver:

Round Two, June 18th – Seattle:

I watched a TED talk awhile ago given by Paula Scher, a successful graphic designer with over 30 years of experience, where she focused on this very topic. Her talk was titled “Serious Play”. She opened the talk by saying:

“My work is play and I play when I design. I even looked it up in the dictionary to make sure that I actually that. And the definition of play is, number one, to engage in a childlike activity or endeaver and two, was gambling. And I realize I do both when I’m designing. I’m both a kid and I’m gambling all the time. And I think that if you’re not then there’s something inherently wrong with the structure of the situation if you’re a designer.”

I also found an interview with her recently in the Pyschology Today blogs that covers the value of failure in relation to her talk.

“The thing about your mistakes is, when everybody praises something, you don’t learn anything. But when you do something terrible, you know what not to do. And that’s fantastic. You also learn what you could do if you manipulated it a different way. You have to try these things. You have to see where the failure takes you. That’s very scary and risky and also hard to do while you’re trying to do something professional. So you have to set aside some personal R&D to make the failure.”

The focus was the difference between solemn work and serious work. In the interview she defines “serious work as being where you make breakthroughs, and solemn work as doing the status quo and the level may be very good but it’s not breakthrough.”

She explains, and this is the gem right here, that “the best way to engage in serious play is to be totally and completely unqualified for the job.”

This especially struck me and hit on something that I have embraced in my career. Up until a few years ago, I don’t think I got a single job I was qualified for the day I stepped in the door. But somehow my energy and passion won out over those candidates with the skills already in place. That’s not to say I know exactly what I’m doing now, nor would I really want to, but I at least have a good base in which to have a bit more fun. I’ve always strongly believed in focusing in on what you want, finding a way to do it and just going for it even if what you want may seem a little (or even a lot) out of reach at the start. Be passionate and focused. Never be afraid to fail because failure is what greatness is made of.

“You have to get bad in order to get good. You have to try a lot of things and fail in order to make the next discovery.”

Check out Paula Scher and her talk on “Serious Play”. It’s a good one. She also shows many great images from her expansive career including some good ones on architecturally integrated graphic design and some from her newest project that involve turning some ugly overpasses into revolving artistic neighborhood gateways.