This is the first article in a series about the Design Process.
This is the first article in a series about the Design Process.
One of the most important parts of the design process is making sure you are solving the right problem.
When you engage with a company to design or redesign they website or their brand, most of the time, they will have an idea of what they are doing right and what they aren’t. Or they’ll have an idea of what they think is the direction they want to go in or pursue.
I’m not saying the client’s opinion is not important — because it is — but I generally use that as one of the factors, not the only factor.
Their opinion is great, however, to formulate some initial ideas of how to structure your questioning to the most important group — the consumers/customers.
Your client has charged you with a task: get to the root of the problem, and find out how to solve it. That only can be done by talking with the customers and finding out what their pain points are. What is the current product lacking? What is their opinion of the current product or website? What would they like to see incorporated in the new version?
You need to talk to a good cross section of users that interface with the product. We are talking about managers, everyday workers, or the general public — depending on the client you are working with and the task at hand.
Compile your findings in a concise report, and prepare your findings for the next phase of the design process: defining the goals.
Possible Pitfalls
The whole reason for design, commercially, is to solve a problem. If there is no problem, then there is no need to design. The question is, are you solving the real problems? Oftentimes, this gets murky when the business either restricts access to the client or ignores the client’s problems.
A great design should make what it is that the business does better and at the same time make the end user happy and confident that they are doing business with a quality company. If you aren’t doing that, then you need to re-evaluate the problem statement that you are trying to solve. If you don’t, then you will inevitably not be successful in what it is that you are doing.
This is step 1 of 17 from the Design Process Playbook
Next: Defining Success: Setting SMART Goals in Design Projects
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