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What is Design?

First, let’s look at the dictionary definition of design; it may give us some clues. Design is defined as:

• to work out the structure or form
• to plan and make something artistically or skilfully
• to conceive in the mind, invent, create
• a plan, sketch, or preliminary drawing
• a coherent purposeful pattern, not chaos
• a finished artistic or decorative creation.

So the sense we get from this is of an artefact which is a structure or form that is planned, artistic, coherent, purposeful and useful.

So, by simple inference, try this simple test right now. For each statement below, please score it between 1 (strongly disagree) and 7 (strongly agree).

How well did you do? The higher the score, the greater your need to focus on "What is the use?" "What is good design?". If you scored less than 7 or greater than 35, tell me about it.

These pages develop these issues, and suggest what you should do to obtain good design. It must be said that every project is different. Judgements must be made on a project by project basis concerning the financial investment depth and of detail you give to things I am writing about. Also, you need to decide whether to do them yourselves or to employ a consultancy to do them for you. It is a cost benefit decision.

Some of the things I write about here are not ‘sexy’; they take time and they sometimes feel a drudge - but they are necessary.

So, to the process of design.

The Process of Design Creation

The process of design is:

1. Gather facts and information
2. Examine and explore
3. Incubate
4. Give design its birth
5. Examine and refine
6. Iterate (probably 6-8 times)
7. Deliver the designed product

I found this framework in "A Technique for Producing Ideas", by James Webb Young, and have modified it a little with my note on step 6.

We get so caught up in creating things that we jump to step 4 (Giving design its birth) almost immediately, and give the preceding and the following steps insufficient attention to detail at the right time. An interesting one is step 3(Incubation), that stage where the mind works on the problem when you are doing something else. This is often carried out unconsciously during steps 1 (Gathering facts and information) and 2 (Examining and exploring), which are usually carried out unconsciously as part of step 4 (Giving design its birth).

Steps 5 and 6(Examining, refining and iterating) are often carried out after step 7 (Delivering the designed product), in the form of ‘maintenance’, putting all the things right that should have been got right first. Unfortunately, this just wastes money.

Foundations of excellent design

There are a number of foundations for excellent design, and I will discuss each one in turn in more depth. They are:

• having a clear purpose
• knowing who it’s for
• knowing what the users are like
• knowing the user’s use context
• knowing what users want to achieve
• defining usability goals
• having a clear plan
• excellent teamworking and communication
• creating a clear design to support the use
• making sure it meets the business needs
• making sure it meets the user’s needs
• fitness of purpose

Warning: If you do not have a good understanding of all of these, you will fail to some extent or another.