Why to think like a ‘Designer’ instead of any other profession?
Design as a word would be confusing. It is not usually same what people perceive from design so expectations vary from a designer. Although design is still associated with appearance for some, actually design is already beyond being just visual. Since the one-size-fits-all approach has begun to show signs of inadequacy, being designer as a term has evolved from being just visual into creating meaning and solving problems with different methologies through various channels for each stakeholder.
Industrial revolution gives opportunity to mass production so each second is a chance to create something new and spread it. However, it would be too optimistic to believe that moving in the market with a new idea visualized based on design trends and expect everyone to love it or even pay for it. That’s not going to happen! Before taking steps to realise an idea, the first step that should be taken is to seriously probe deep into potential customers’ desires and needs also discover who they are deep inside. The focus here should be seeing the person that is hidden behind the user. Users of the service should not be counted as only users, they are people who have emotions, habits, weaknesses,strengths which affect the connection between service and user from the initial exposure of use.They are people who has different kind of meaning blocks in their lives that our product need to adress these meanings so meaningful experiences are going to emerge as a part of the connection.
While working on a service or product, the process of the service must be designed according to the datas, experiences,observations,insights which are gained during empathy and exploration processes in order to create a consistent journey in every step. The feeling and meaning which is wanted to transmit should be same in the whole process from production to customer services. Here we encounter with the fact that the right product or service must be delivered on the right place to the right person in a right way. Otherwise, there will be a gap between service and user.Therefore, design has actually evolved into a problem-solving and creating meaning approach that is fed by research process.
‘’Design thinking is a human centred approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.‘’ Tim Brown — Executive Chair of IDEO
From user-centred to human-centered
Despite talking about the importance of understanding user, it is not really right to give identity design as user-centred anymore. Since design is way more than this. Designers are able to understand all stakeholders’ needs with design thinking methodologies in actually empathy part, defining problems in the current process, foster all innovation team members which includes the stakeholders to create new ideas in order to make their goals intersect with each other. Therefore, design is more likely human-centred rather than being user-centred. Furthermore, technologic feasibilities and business goals of the company light the way. Sure, we place the customers at the center, but also it is important to always integrate it with the technological opportunities and company’s aims.
Design is a collaborative process.
While handling these undertakings, thinking that designers working alone is far away from the real and what has to be. In a design process, workshops and collaborative work are always supported because new ideas always come from synthesis of multiple perspectives. As it is mentioned, it is significant to get insights from personas but there is something as much important as this. Insights of all stakeholders from variety of disciplines. Each of them must attend the process and share their insights that they have collected over times. This also provides consistency in all stages of the service while giving the meaning to the customer.
This might pop up in our minds. our colleagues from different departmants may influence the outcome of design process with making significant choices which affect the journey. If design thinking is a way to solve problems through creativity, are they designer or even can anyone be designer? There are many different ideas and perspectives about it. I would like to highlight that the designer that I have been addressing from the beginning of the writing is someone whose aim is to empathy with all stakeholders, applying dozens of methodologies and workshops to create ideas, believing design is never over, running the process with iteration and also thinking about technological feasibilities. As you can see designers should have understanding of other disciplines such as marketing, development, brand management, psychology etc… It is because designers should work with colleagues who specialise in other disciplines. In order to communicate better with them, they should be able to speak the same language. We call this person ‘’T shape designer.’’
T shape designer is a person who expertise in one discipline but also have understanding of other disciplines.
Letter T here interpreted with the shape of it. The vertical line of T gives the meaning of specialization area of the designer and the horizontal sections of T refers to that person’s understanding of other disciplines. Professional designers are the ones who improve themselves in marketing, psychology, sociology, neuromarketing and some other fields due to their interests. That’s why they are able to empathy with stakeholders, define real problems behind the apparent ones, immerse themselves in stakeholders’ environment in order to have deeper understanding, foster the innovation team to brainstorm then prioritize them with different methodologies and realise what users really want and achieve. Therefore, the importance of design thinking has been arising for years and it seems like it is going to keep escalating.
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Referanslar
Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff, Darrel Rhea — Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences (2005, Pearson Education)
