Where design falls short

Emily Tulloh
Sep 3, 2018 · 4 min read

As a service designer I happen to think taking a human-centred approach to designing products and services will change the world for the better.

At one point I was certain there was no problem too big, no challenge too complex — that design would address all our worldly issues in the end. It seemed simple: start out with assumptions and ideas, test them with real users, and iterate as you go. It felt like spreading the gospel of user-led and iterative design could do the world a whole lot of good:

Think big — go for quantity + Test early, test often + Listen to your users!

What can’t be solved by paper + Sharpies + Lego?

Yet in recent years, there have been moments when I’m lost. When projects hit a brick wall that can’t be broken with the standard test-and-iterate toolkit that we designers hold so dearly. It’s forced me to ask the question: when does our unwavering user-led approach fall short, and what can we learn from other disciplines?

But first, let’s reconnect with the strengths of a design-led approach to solving problems.

Why design is awesome

A human-centred approach to design has certain principles and values:

  • starting with problems, not pre-empting solutions
  • putting people at the centre
  • prioritising making over talking
  • pushing to reduce complexity
  • facilitating collaboration

Perhaps most famously shared through IDEO’s ‘design thinking’ approach, similar design principles are used in central government to design services and by Google Ventures to run sprints that address critical business questions.

With a steering from these principles, a design-led project:

  • doesn’t get attached to early ideas
  • tests with users early and often (and listens to their response)
  • visualises and prototypes at every stage (with any available materials)
  • does the hard work to serve up an intuitive user experience
  • bridges the gap between user needs and business needs
Good design ❤s testing with users early and often (Photo credit: 4c Design)

Armed with this philosophy, a gorgeous portfolio and passion for tackling genuine problems, you can imagine how designers can develop the sense that ‘our way is the right way’.

And then you learn that these shiny theories can face challenges in practice.

Where design falls short

In my experience (working mainly with public and third sector clients), there are some areas where the valiant make-and-test attitude won’t get you very far.

Commissioning

It’s been a difficult journey realising that not everyone believes design will deliver value as I might do. Governments, companies and charities might call for proposals that preach ‘user-led design’, ‘innovation’ and ‘agile’ methodology to bring a new problem-solving lens to their age-old problems. Yet ambiguity is scary, and in the name of risk-aversion, solutions (digital, naturally) are often agreed up front.

In practice, commissioners cannot be expected to take the same bold design-test-iterate mindset when considering giant, multi-faceted programmes of work. We have a responsibility to work together to try out new models of commissioning — those that can work with ambiguity and change course in response to the user research. This isn’t about designers educating commissioners, but mutual collaboration focused on delivering outcomes.

Evaluation

Designers evaluate all the time. We make and test and pivot based on real-world user feedback. Of course, you cannot fully eliminate your bias when researching and testing. So often clients will (quite rightly) push for objective evidence and evaluation of an emerging product or service.

In my experience, planning an evaluation can feel like you’ve been dropped out of a design studio into an academic institution. Study design. Metrics. Participant recruitment. Limitations and bias. I couldn’t find that ‘design’ expertise to draw on to make it easier.

Surely there’s a lot we can learn from our friends in academia to add some serious quant to our beloved qual?

Managing change

Call it organisation design or cultural change — this is about getting teams and companies fit to deliver 21st century products and services. It’s about changing people’s attitudes and behaviour on a mass scale. Even more of a sticking point is getting people to embrace a culture of change as the world continues to progress around them.

Whilst this enthusiastic blog post highlighted service design as an alternative to the traditional ‘change management’ approach, I can’t help but feel that some of these old(er)-school professions definitely have something to teach us.

There’s more to organisational change than Post-it notes…

Aware of our limitations

It’s beyond the colourful world of design where the murky characters of complex commissioning, evidence-based practice and bureaucratic organisations live. And by acknowledging and addressing these as challenges that we don’t have the magic solution to, design has the chance to be transformed from an optimistic-if-naïve ‘toolkit’ of methods to a truly transformative approach to creating lasting impact.

This recognition that design isn’t the saving grace of society is difficult but important. But perhaps it’s that we can’t change the world alone — that collaboration is required with other disciplines that match the messy, iterative and passionately optimistic product/service design process with the careful, considered analytical approaches of experiment/project design and organisational design/change.

Emily Tulloh

Written by

Service design, meeting people & making things

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