Many designers talk about user-centred design. But design approaches alone aren’t sufficient to ensure we are human-centred. Design approaches can be used carelessly — or even maliciously — to centre the designer and sideline the user. Read full article
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At Service Design in Government, I discovered that service designers see themselves as Mario. But that is an unrealistic model for what service design should be. Read full article
11 commentsA neat way of understanding what sorts of user research to do when, and how that maps to the double diamond.
This is elaborated on by Matthew Godfrey.
It’s 15 years since the Design Council came up with the double diamond, a model of the design process.
I find it useful as a general guide, although it does seem to confuse many people who assume it to be a strictly linear process. Recent conversations I’ve had at both the Service Design Academy and work have shown me that it remains a challenge to truly convey the complexity of a design process, and that the double diamond may in fact hinder this.
As always, it’s about having the right approach and mindset, rather than expecting an off-the-shelf tool or model to fix all your problems. Cat Drew’s article points this out:
But following a toolkit does not equal designing a good solution to the right problem. It is as much about the mindsets as the tools (e.g. being humble and open to ideas coming from everywhere and changing as a result of feedback, curious about what’s really going on and how things are working or not and working as teams rather than as a lone genius).
Is convergence in design thinking problematic?
The problem I have with it is it models a form of Normality. You can diverge but, in the end, you must converge.
An interesting idea from Alastair Somerville. He explains his alternative design process:
Yes, there is a convergence to design a product that meets identified user needs. Yes, there are constraints around what can be made.
However, divergence is recognised through the process.