Why everyone is making the same mistake when it comes to design (thinking)?
Hey you.
Do you think that design is making things shinier and prettier? Do you think that you need a designer to visualise what is on your mind?
Well, buddy. We need to talk.
You are missing a great deal. It is called Design Doing and Thinking and it is around for a while, already.
Good design is not about how something looks, it’s about how it works.
In our daily life we often come across things that work well for us and make our lives easy. You may not be a designer but you definitely have had an experience with such things. Here are some examples of good design:
A bus seat that feels like home making your travel more comfortable.
A traffic light that adjusts itself based on the amount of traffic on the road.
A mobile app that lets you store all your passwords securely and sync them to other devices.
A music player that keeps track of your favourite songs automatically.
Sometimes we do not even realise that these things are designed to work in such a way, because they look and work so naturally! Even when we do realise, we don’t bother to think why they are designed in such a way. But when something doesn’t work well it bugs us, makes us frustrated and angry! In this article I will discuss why some things don’t work well and why and how design thinking can help us build right solutions for people.
Risks of not investing in design thinking
Design is never JUST about making things look pretty. It’s about finding meaningful and purposeful ways to make things easier for users. It’s about understanding how people think and how they interact with your brand, so you can make more informed decisions in the future.
Design is about solving problems for people. When you identify and solve the problems faced by your users, you create a better experience. The design of your website is how you communicate with your users.
Design is not about making things look pretty. It’s about making sense of things and connecting people with.
The risks of not investing in design thinking is very high. This is because failure to incorporate design thinking in the core product development process will lead to an inferior product, compared to the one that included it. A lot of companies fall short of this and wind up releasing new products or features which lack imagination and innovation.
One of the common reasons why startups fail is that they don’t invest enough in design thinking. What is design thinking? It’s a process in which you develop your product keeping the end user in mind.
I would like to share my views on the risks of not investing in design thinking:
1. Lack of problem framing.
Design thinking helps us to frame problems and think of solutions that could be relevant to customers or users. It helps us to think beyond the given product or service.
In an age in which we are increasingly surrounded by complex systems, “design thinking” offers us a way of developing solutions to problems.
We, designers are good at framing problems, and not just in a visual way. Many designers have tools and methods for research, analysis, ideation and a lot of other activities that help us look at a problem from many angles. This is a core part of design thinking.
It’s also important to frame the problem so that you don’t get stuck on the first idea you have. If you’re focused on solving one problem, you will probably think of multiple solutions before finding one that works. This is typically the case with innovation; if the first solution were the right one, then someone else would already have done it. When Steve Jobs came up with the iPhone, there was no expectation that it would be an instant success — it took years to find its place in the market.
I like to say that design is not about making things look pretty; it’s about making sense of things and connecting people with them. Designers can help companies solve big problems by using design thinking as part of their process.
2. Disconnected from outside world.
When you truly understand the needs of your customers, you can design products that solve those needs. Design thinking helps us to connect with the outside world and make sure our products are serving customer’s needs.
The challenge of communicating and experiencing empathy for users has been a roadblock to progress in many industries, not least of all software development. The ability to connect with users directly can also be a crucial element in building trust, which is key to generating enthusiasm and customer loyalty.
People who practice design thinking are likely to be better at solving problems, because they understand the motivations of others and can see things from their perspective. They are also likely to be more creative, because they think in a more holistic way, seeing all parts of a problem rather than just the individual pieces.
Design thinking helps us to connect with the outside world and make sure our products are serving customer’s needs.
The emphasis on gaining empathy for users and their needs is a key component of design thinking, but is often ignored in traditional approaches to product development.
3. Oversimplification of user needs.
Design thinking helps us to understand customer’s needs and build the right solution for them. It helps us to come up with solutions that are more meaningful for customers than simply solving a need.
When you understand your customer’s needs, you can find solutions that address them most effectively and efficiently, leading to better outcomes all around.
We can see many examples where a product or service has failed because it did not address the problem, issue or need properly. In other words, we can say it failed because it did not solve the problem in a meaningful way. Design thinking helps us to understand what a person really wants, what they really need and how we can create something better, more useful, more helpful and more meaningful to them.
4. Focusing on technology, rather than user needs and human experience.
Design thinking is a strategy for breaking down complex problems into simpler ones, and then creating solutions that meet those needs while helping us to be more human in our approach.
Design thinking focuses on understanding human experience and user needs instead of focusing on technology or tools. It helps us to come up with products that fit customer’s need, instead of fitting our tools or technology preferences. This approach encourages the creation of products that are simple, intuitive, and easy to use.
Design is about understanding people and human experience. This means paying attention to the way people use things, and to the larger contexts in which they live and work.
To begin with, we must shift our mindset from thinking of our users as “users” to thinking of them as “people.” This shift can help us focus on what they need, rather than what we want or how our tools are supposed to help them.
This means designing for people by designing for experiences, not products. It means that good design is more than just making things pretty; it’s about solving problems and removing barriers. And it means designing for people, not products.
5. Focus on making/executing not experimenting/testing and validating.
Many of the teams have been established for a long time and have a culture of doing it their way. They have built their solutions based on assumptions and not validated them with potential customers. There is a focus on execution of the solution instead of experimenting and validating. The team is working according to what they think is right, instead of taking in feedback from the stakeholders, customers and experts who are close to the problem. Validation stage is missed out and there is not enough learning because of that.
The other challenge I see is the lack of feedback loops. Teams do not get enough feedbacks from the customers or stakeholders on their work; neither from within their own organisation. Feedbacks are needed to iterate, improve, learn and reach better outcomes. Not having these feedback loops will result in wrong product-market fit, solution that does not solve any problem or waste resources building something nobody wants.
There also needs to be a culture of learning at all levels and organisations should promote this type of culture.There needs to be an environment where we learn from both our successes as well as failures. We need to keep track quickly after decisions have been taken so we can learn from those decisions quickly and get back on track with learning faster than ever before
6. Not taking a look at things holistically.
It is said that one of the most difficult things to do in the world is to take a step back and view things from 30,000 feet. We can not take a look at things holistically.
Take for example, product development. Have you ever been involved in product development?
I bet you have. The process of starting a product is usually something like this:
Engineers design a new product using the technology they know best and they know how to sell it. Product teams try to find ways to monetise the new product. Marketing gets excited about the new shiny thing and tries to figure out how to market it. UX designers start thinking about user experience. All these people are doing their own thing, focusing on their own piece of puzzle, trying to improve their part of the product without seeing how everything comes together as a whole experience for the users.
There is an enormous gap between what users want and what they get sometimes, which results in bad user experience and frustration with products.
There are two main reasons why fragmentation in products occurs: inside-out thinking and lack of collaboration between different disciplines.
Inside-out thinking means each unit thinks their own users, their own user needs and their own roadmap without caring much about others’ work or input from other.
Final words
It is important to keep investing in design, especially when dealing with innovation. Design will help you get a better usability and accessibility. For that, it is necessary to realise the value of design and its role in the process of innovation.
If we use design to address real-world problems, we need strong problem framing, customer immersion, iterative prototyping, validation testing, and customer contact.
I hope this article gives you a perspective on risks of not investing in design. It’s an important topic as more organisations realise the importance of design and try to make design a part of their culture.
