Nuances of Design

Our class was privileged to have Design for America as our guest speaker this week. Thus far our guest speakers have all been industry professionals. I enjoyed hearing another student’s thoughts on design and the digital making world. Our guest speakers reframed the way I thought about design and offered plenty to think about as I start working on my final project.

I always thought design involved either architecture, cars, or interior decorating. I quickly realized that design is an aspect of everything humans have made. It impacts effectiveness, aesthetics, user experience, practicality, etc.  Engineers and makers are continuously tweaking their designs to improve these areas.  A good design may make a product, but a bad design can break it. For example, take a look at these parking signs from Los Angeles.

How much time does it take to see if parking is free on Sunday? The second picture is clearly the better design,  but not every example will be this clear. How different are these pictures from each other?  Although they contain the same information, these pictures display it in vastly different ways. I’m mentioning this to show that improving design doesn’t have to be rocket science. Sometimes nuances make all the difference.

The city of Los Angeles has since implemented new parking signs. However, a key idea from the presentation is that innovation happens throughout the whole design process, not just implementation. One must think critically in order to understand and discover where the true problem lies in their design. In the parking sign example, this turns out to be information overload.

Understanding the true nature of the design problem is easier said than done. The design process is simplified into 6 steps: identify, immerse,  reframe, ideate, build, and test.  The first 3 steps are necessary for one to understand the problem. Much like consultants, designers must interview relevant individuals in order to gain new perspectives. “How Can We” statements are useful tools that help a team narrow down to a single point of focus.

Once the pain points have been identified,  the next 3 steps are turning abstract ideas into concrete solutions.  Although these steps are useful guidelines outlining the design process, the real process is far from linear.  You will be jumping forward and backward from one step to the next as the team generates new ideas and takes in more information.

My group designed an interactive railing to help blind college students feel more included on campus.  It was interesting to see the variety of designs our class came up with during our limited time. After each group presented their design, I wish we could have engaged in a class brainstorming discussion where we had the opportunity to combine all our ideas into one solution.

 

Thank you for reading. You can read more about LA parkings signs and other good/bad design ideas here.

 

 

2 thoughts on “Nuances of Design”

  1. Hey Michael!
    I liked how you took the ideas about design and it’s ever-presence in our lives and applied it to an outside example. It’s very true that as the speakers said, “good design often goes unnoticed, but bad design is easy to spot”. Those parking signs are terribly confusing and I’ve definitely seen many confusing signs similar! I look forward to hopefully engaging with our target audience for our project in order to gain insight into their needs and more effectively write the “How can we” statements.

  2. Hey Michael!
    I liked how you took the ideas we learned about design and it’s ever-presence in our lives and applied it to an outside example. It’s very true that as the speakers said, “good design often goes unnoticed, but bad design is easy to spot”. Those parking signs are terribly confusing and I’ve definitely seen many confusing signs similar! I look forward to hopefully engaging with our target audience for our project in order to gain insight into their needs and more effectively write the “How can we” statements.

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