Design Studio Methodology Workshop with Will Evans
Notes from Design Studio Methodology Workshop with Will Evans, Sydney 2013.
Will Evans, Director of Design & Research TLC Labs @semanticwill
Framing the problem
- Context matters (domain)
- Different contexts (ontologies)
- Sense-making
Big Design Up Front & Waste
The problem with a lot of software development is there is a lot of time wasted gathering requirements, wireframing, visual design and developing a product but when the software is released no customers come.
Even in Agile environments we still create a lot of waste in our process.
Rituals makes us feel better about our work. We continue to produce artefacts to feel like we are contributing to the project. Will Evans
Lean Startup, Eric Ries
Eric Ries' view of extreme uncertainty in the business world affects not only start ups but also enterprises, we need to change our processes.
If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. Edwards Deming
30 Circles Exercise
The '30 Circles' sketching exercise was used to prove that you can generate lots of ideas quickly.
Design Thinking
IDEO didn't invent 'design thinking', IDEO adopted it.
'Disruptive innovation', we used the definition as defined by Clay Christensen. Timex is an example of disruptive innovation. They produced low quality, low cost watches and that's all that lots of customers wanted. They didn't need to or want to pay for expensive watches. Companies that disrupt get better and better quality products and eventually challenge/dominate the big companies in the industry.
Evans' definition of Design Thinking; observation & empathy to fit people's needs.
Only through contact, observation, and empathy with customer’s can you hope to design solutions to fit their needs.
4 Key Elements to Design thinking
This can happen in any order but you need all of them:
- Empathy
- Frame
- Ideation
- Prototype & Validate
3 Constraints
- Desirability
- Viability
- Feasibility
This is from IDEO, see page 6: Human Centered Design
Another way to describe the constraints:
- Technology
- Business
- Human Values
Extend, Adopt, Create, Manage
Design Studio
Create, Pitch, Critique.
Design Studio focuses on Generative Ideation
Refinement vs Exploration
Diverge & Converge
Funnel
- Mystery
- Heuristic, if this than that
- Algorithm
Problem Statements
Problem statements shouldn't be leading or pointing towards a solution.
The 4 'c's of a Problem Statement
- Components - Parts of the problem statement.
- Characteristics - Features or attributes of the problem statement.
- Challenges - Obstacles.
- Characters - People associated with the problem statement.
Look up, Chris Matt's 'Real Options Theory'
Wendell Holmes
Karl Popper - Overthrow a solution
The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. Fran Lebowitz
Sketching
During the sketching session we did:
- 8-ups
- 1-ups
- Group sketch
Some people were forced to swap groups so that the group doesn't sway towards the strongest/loudest person/best drawings.
We were forced to draw and have the person next to us present the idea. This made you focus on creating a sketch that someone else could read without it being explained.
Taboo
An exercise to write down and solve a 'taboo' with a smartphone. Point of the exercise seemed to be to identify taboos in the company as the solution may come from breaking a taboo.
Ritual Dissent
Negative critique only.
Framework to assess the negative critique: 1. Ignore (ignore the critique) 2. Remove (feature) 3. Research solution (find best practise to fix) 4. Research problem (innovate with the feature)
Evans' uses this framework to strategise areas of a product to work on next in 6 month cycles or longer.
Endowment Effect
We have put so much effort into something we can't emotionally stop doing it or kill the idea. Argument against 'sketching in code'. Even high quality wireframes make it hard to discard an idea.
Articles
Evans' has 3 key articles to read on Design Studio: