Having looked at a lot of individual design process techniques last semester, I wanted to take some time at the start of this module to explore the overall methodologies further. I’ve been aware of these for a while, and most likely use them without consciously doing so, but I think taking some time to consider them further now will help me to identify areas of my work I can improve on this semester.
Of the design methodologies I looked into, the double diamond is the one I was most familiar with already. The double diamond process is a way of diverging and converging through the discovery phase and the design phase to be able to explore a wide array of possibilities during both phases, before refining the possibilities into a complete idea. I feel this is something I do to an extent already, but I could improve my work by exploring more during the divergence in both phases.
I found this detailed version of the double diamond really helpful in understanding the steps in much more detail. In particular, I found the added detail around the second convergence to be useful to see as it emphasises the repetition of iteration, which is something I feel I could improve on. I think I’m sometimes too comfortable to design, iterate on feedback, and leave it at that rather than seeking more advice on my second iteration. This is something I’ll make a conscious effort to do more of as I think it will be particularly beneficial in this module.
This Medium article helped me understand the double diamond better and raised an interesting point towards the end. The point was that the idea of a set design process is unrealistic, and it’s important to understand when and when not to use certain design process techniques. While the double diamond is a good starting point and is overall a good model to base a design process on, it’s the role of the designer to know what techniques are relevant for the project. I think this is something that will be really important to think about for this module, considering potentially how complex the problems I will be designing for could be. I’ll endeavour in this module to really consider what is and isn’t relevant for the project to ensure an effective and tailored design process.
Lecture 2 : What is the Design Process?
Human Centred Design was really interesting to me when I was researching it as it encompassed a lot more than I expected. It sounded like quite an obvious concept but some of the key aspects of it I found really interesting.
Human Centered Design (HCD) is a design methodology that focuses on people and their context to seek to understand the root problems they face. HCD intends for designers to focus on four key pillars.
The first of these that really took my interest was point 2, which is to address the root problem rather than surface level issues. This is something I’ve read about in Mike Monteiro’s book, “Ruined by Design”, where he talks about the issues cause by big tech companies pushing back big issues with quick fixes rather than addressing the core of the problem. This was something that I found really interesting in the book and something I felt was really important for me to consider. I’m really pleased to see it reappear here in HCD as it puts that idea in context for me and will allow me to focus more on it in the future.
The other idea I found interesting was 4, small and simple interventions. I was intially confused by this, as I felt it somewhat contradicted point 2, but the more I read into it the more it made sense to me. This is still talking about the root causes but is encouraging the iterative design over overhauling systems. This is something I feel is important when working on interating systems that are already being used, as overhauling a system may cause a worse user experience due to unfamiliarity. Instead, after finding the root of the problem, gradually and considerately iterating and testing to make sure every change is a genuine improvement will provide users a much better experience as they be able to adjust easier to the new changes and get a better experience form them.
