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Introducing Design Methods

Introducing Design Methods
This guide is for anyone who wants to understand the methods designers use and try them out for themselves. We’ve grouped 20 design methods into three categories: Discover, Define and Develop. These are based on the first three stages of the Double Diamond, the Design Council’s simple way of mapping the design process. Methods like these are used all the time in our work with clients. Discover Creating a project space Observation User diaries Being your users Brainstormin Fast visualization Choosing a sample Quantitative surveys Secondary research Hopes and fears Define Assessment criteria Comparing notes Drivers and hurdles Focus groups Customer journey mapping Develop Character profiles Scenarios Role playing Blueprinting Physical prototyping 1. What is it? Creating a dedicated area to organise project materials, work and meet. What is it useful for? How can I do it? Find - or make - a dedicated project zone. 2. Pick your scenario and record your observation with photos or video. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Related:  DESIGN THINKING

The Double Diamond Model of Product Definition and Design / peterme.com After I left Adaptive Path and started working in-house, I was disheartened to realize how retrograde most people’s view of design still was, with a focus on styling and execution. I needed a way to communicate the full breadth of activities my team and I did. So, over the past couple of years, I’ve been using a double diamond model for talking about digital product design. It didn’t originate with me — from what I can tell, The UK Design Council created it in 2005. I’ve modified it to more closely track what happens with digital product design. I’ve shown it at a few events, and people seem to appreciate it. Some explanations Why diamonds? Why the red words about design at the bottom? Hey! And, the deliverables slide is just to connect the double diamond to more typical UX design practice. (Thanks to Thomas Küber and Matthew Milan for enhancing my thinking on this.)

The Web Design Process Everyone Should Follow by anthony on 12/16/10 at 10:19 pm Imagine the difficulty of getting to a destination without a clear direction. It’s not enough to know where you want to go. You also have to know the process that will get you there. Every design project should start with a design process. There are many design processes. Content The first cycle of the design process is content. The purpose of starting a website in the first place is to share your content with others. You also have to decide which group of people you want to target. Content consists of text, images, video or other media. Once you know what kind of content your site will have, it’s time to figure out how to organize your content on each page. Information Architecture Many designers skip this crucial step and go right into visual design. Creating quality content is one thing, but making it easy to find and consume is another. Wireframes help guide the navigation and layout design. Visual Design Development

Wikimedia commons Design Thinking for Social Innovation - Featured Topics - Community - TakingITGlobal This month we asked ourselves the question, what fuels effective social innovation? We are pleased to present our featured topic on Design Thinking (DT). Consider this a crash course in the concepts and processes behind DT, as well as in-depth resources that include relevant literature, media, and toolkits for its effective implementation. This article also provides case studies and examples of DT in action to inspire you towards affecting positive social change in an innovative and engaging way. Big Ideas Summary "Design Thinking draws upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning, to explore possibilities of what could be, and to create desired outcomes that benefit the end user (the customer). Design Thinking… What is it, and how is it different than Design? In order to understand how DT works, we need to differentiate it from what we traditionally call Design. DT is an emerging field that originates from the principles of traditional design disciplines. Cross, N. (2011).

Comparing User Research Methods for Information Architecture By Jim Ross Published: June 7, 2011 “Nowadays, there are multiple techniques and tools, both online and offline, for generative and evaluative user research for information architecture (IA), which provide greater insights on organizing and labeling information.” In the old days, card sorting was simple. In this column, I’ll summarize and compare the latest generative and evaluative methods for IA user research. Generative IA Research Methods Information architecture user research seeks to understand how people think about information to determine the best ways of organizing and labeling content. generative—gathering user input on the organization and labeling of content—orevaluative—determining whether people can correctly find things in an organizational structure we’ve created Using both methods in an iterative approach to user research is often the best way to ensure an intuitive information architecture. Initial User Research Open Card Sorting Individual Versus Group Card Sorting Endnotes

design thinking | Ayelet Lazarovitch Video Veronika Scott – The Empowerment Plan It’s lovely to see how a complex problem can be solved while offering so much added value. This is the story of how product design and system design intertwined to offer a holistic solution to homeless people. Like this: Like Loading... IDEO – design thinking process – in the good old days… This video is a beautiful demonstration of the design thinking process in product design. Even though this video is from quite some time ago, core aspects of ‘designerly thinking’ are right there – focusing on the customer, getting to the heart of the problem by looking at it through different lenses, being optimistic about the possibility to solve the challenge, thinking creatively and practically together. Enjoy! Image The Collective Action Toolkit by Frog Design A new Design Thinking resource is out. Notes from: The A-Z of visual ideas – How to solve any creative brief Some of my favorite quotes are: “What are ideas? Is design thinking killing creativity? #1. #2.

The AIDA Marketing Model in Web Design By Louis Lazaris If you’ve been formally educated in marketing, more than likely you’ve learned about a marketing model called AIDA. AIDA is an acronym that represents the different steps involved in selling a product or service. Very often, the principles of AIDA are applied naturally when a useful product or service is being marketed. Being web designers and app developers, however, our personal involvement on a technical level in our own or client projects may deter our efforts to produce a design that correctly implements AIDA. I’ve only recently come to learn about the AIDA model myself, and I thought it would be an interesting topic to apply directly to the decisions we make in web design. A = Attention The first step in successfully marketing a product or service is getting attention, that is, getting potential consumers to notice your product. Attention Through Strong Imagery The extra-large iPad images give the customer a clear picture of the relative size of this new device.

Social Searching How to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills As an entrepreneur, you make decisions every day that affect the success of your products, the loyalty of your employees, and the overall health of your business. To make the best decisions possible, you need to think critically and quickly to pick out any flaws in your processes that might harm your business. When you think through a problem, your thought process is naturally colored by biases, such as your point of view and your assumptions about the situation. Each of those biases affects your reasoning. "Critical thinking is a way to intervene in your thought process," says Linda Elder, an educational psychologist and president of the Foundation for Critical Thinking based in Tomales, Calif. Related: How to Sharpen Your Decision-Making Skills Try these three strategies to help you think through a problem effectively. 1. Once you identify your purpose, it should inform every step of your decision process. 2. To do that, articulate your own viewpoint. 3.

methods for analysing users' needs and behavior L503 User Needs and Behavior in Theory and Practice Learning GuidePrepared by Jean Umiker-Sebeok and Kim Gregson School of Library and Information Science Indiana University - Bloomington Created Fall, 1996; Revised Aug., 1998 Defining User Needs: Tasks, Tools, SituationsTypes of Situations in Which User Needs Analysis Should be DoneTop-down vs. Bottom-up Approach to Needs AnalysisMethods of User Needs AnalysisWho Needs to Be StudiedTriangulationChoosing Your MethodsTimeline for MethodsBibliographyAppendix I - Sample Structured Interview ProtocolAppendix II - Sample Focus Group Protocol Defining User Needs: Tasks, Tools, Situations The goal of user needs analysis is to determine what your client wants to accomplish, where, with whom, why, and in what ways. You will find many opportunities to use these methods in your professional life. Types of Situations in Which User Needs Analysis Should be Done Top-down vs. Analysis of user needs can be done top-down or bottom-up. Triangulation Scanning

[Beta] How do you design? This book is not finished. We’ve been developing it over the past few years. It began as a manilla folder with copies of different process models. If you know of any models which are not featured in this book, please feel free to share them with us. Everyone designs. Their results differ. Our processes determine the quality of our products. In this book, I have collected over one-hundred descriptions of design and development processes, from architecture, industrial design, mechanical engineering, quality management, and software development. By presenting these examples, I hope to foster debate about design and development processes. How do we design? How do we describe what we do? How do we do better? Asking these questions has practical goals: reducing risk (increasing the probability of success)setting expectations (reducing uncertainty and fear)increasing repeatability (enabling improvement) Examining processes may not benefit everyone. When must we use a heavy-weight process?

Reflections on Learning Design Process Models 1 « Latestendeavour Blog Over the last month, Rebecca Galley, Paul Mundin and I have been reflecting on a range of our recent meetings and project related activities (including meeting with colleagues from Birmingham City and Gloucestershire, with our external partners, and OU colleagues). This post shares some of this ‘reflection-in-progress’ and as such uses languages familiar to those exploring new structures for curriculum/learning design processes. Here are two different draft representations to help communicate our interpretation of recent work. If you click on the images an enlarged version should load. By way of explanation, these representations were the outcome of our thinking about a range of questions. Does a business case, or any related business approval stage, need any pedagogic information or design? Like this: Like Loading...

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