Visual Representation of Design Process. Up in Toronto last week at OCAD session. In one exercise I drew this.
Posts Tagged ‘Design Thinking’
Visual Diagram of Design Process
Monday, June 15th, 2009Sketching for Design Thinking: Perceptual Thinking
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009Design Thinking Sketching
Sometimes I just like to sketch what I am feeling or sketch a problem I am working on. I don’t try to make it a metaphor or diagram or anything like that. I try to NOT make it any sort of person or animal or recognizable physical object. Then I sit back and look at it and see what I can see.
The goal is to see and think using my visual, perceptual mode rather than my analytic mode. Sometimes I get great insights, sometimes not. But it doesn’t take much time and the upside is it can be quite helpful.
This for me is a kind of Design Thinking, it is about learning how to make a mental shift in how we see the world and it’s underlying patterns, both problems and opportunities.
I have been having such a great time recently on a new product we are working on that I haven’t been able to stay asleep. I wake up and need to work on it some more. So, I thought at that and out came this. I called it “DennisOnFire.”
When I am looking at it, trying to figure it out I often turn the drawing around. Rotating it and seeing if it makes a difference, if a different understanding comes to mind. In the way you see the image now it reminds me of fire. But upside down it reminds me of roots, reaching down into fertile earth. On the one side I start to think of wind blowing around, a large gust after large gust. On the other side I see a grasping extension into the darkness, a trying to extract from nothingness a something.
Follow The Money: Easiest Way to Learn About Your Clients Business
Thursday, May 28th, 2009How do they make their money?
Whatever client you are working on right now I want you to ask yourself “How do they make their money?” If you are working on someone’s website, especially a commercial venture, you better know how they (the business) makes their money.
I hope you are not out there organizing websites just because you like to have things organized. Perhaps some people do this because they have a predilection to being obsessive compulsive, but it would be much better if we are getting paid for improving information architectures or bettering usability because of a need.
Far too often information architects have no idea of the answer to the money question. Yes, I will submit that money is a proxy for measuring success. But it is a easy business metric to gain client’s attention. It is a good variable to pay attention to.
It is a great variable to put into your “big picture” macro view. If you can show how what you are doing or changing is going to affect the money that is a incredible thing. That is a powerful thing. If you can increase profits or decrease costs you will have all the C-level executives eating from your hand, and actually if this is true you probably should be a C-level executive.
Now being able to have dollar “metrics” is the ideal that many people have written about. The point of this article is not to go into that at all. This article is about knowing your clients business! The said fact is that many people don’t even try to understand their clients’ business because they are thinking ahead to the difficultly of metrics and don’t want to go there. In terms of knowing your clients’ business this is a cop-out.
In client conversations I love exploring what are some ways that they can make more money? Equally fascinating is what are ways they can save some money?
So, I ask you: How do they make their money?
Here are the basic elements of learning “How they make their money.”
- What do they obsessively count? Look in their annual reports, press releases, or even interviews with executives. The numbers they tout. How do those relate to what is on the website.
- What is going to get them promoted, a big fat raise, or get them fired? Is their an easy way for them to measure or predict these from website metrics or traffic?
- What is the smallest unit they count? What is the level of granularity they are looking at? Is it a single transaction or the lifetime value of a customer? Is it sales or service and maintenance? Consider how the internet experience maps to these different granularities.
- If the website is focusing on increasing profits, consider savings. If the website is focused on cutting costs also look at increasing revenue/profits. Fiance is a combination of cost structure and revenue streams.
This concern about cost/revenue models isn’t going to transform you overnight into a financial consultant, and that is not the intent, but it is going to raise your appreciation of what the your clients’ world is like. Knowing more about your client, their infrastructure and finances and what is important to them should be a first step of understanding the design challenge and will help you design a better solution that balances client needs and customer needs. This is true design thinking.