Part of our design process at Messagefirst is based on a method known as design studio, which is rooted in the schools of architecture and industrial design. The process includes rapid sketching and peer review/critique. Each time I talk about the process, people ask if they can have the templates.
Well, now you can. I’m making the 8 up and single page templates available free of charge. If you use them, let me know by posting a comment.
Don Norman recently authored an essay titled Technology First, Needs Last. While I agree with the title, I couldn’t disagree more with the content of the essay, starting with the second opening sentence, “design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs.” And it’s all downhill from there.
I’m not sure how Don defines design research as he doesn’t give any definition in the essay, but I would expect based on the content of this essay his perspective is significantly different than how I define design research.
There are two widely accepted definitions of design research according to the Design Research Society. The first is research into the design process. The second is research within the design process. The definition which is most commonly used today is the second. Another way to think of design research is research that is done during and with the purpose of informing the design process. Using these definitions, I find it difficult to ascertain most of the claims Don makes in his essay. Let’s have a look.
Don sets the stage by putting innovations into two groups: conceptual breakthroughs and continual improvements. Conceptual breakthroughs have a huge impact on society. An example of a conceptual breakthrough would be the mobile phone. Continual improvements are more common and are merely an improvement on an existing product, service, or technology. An example of a continual improvement would be intermittent windshield wipers, which improved on the original design of windshield wipers. Sounds pretty good.
It’s the next claim that I find just plain silly:
“New conceptual breakthroughs are invariably driven by the development of new technologies. The new technologies, in turn, inspire technologists to invent things, not sometimes because they themselves dream of having their capabilities, but many times simply because they can build them. In other words, grand conceptual inventions happen because technology has finally made them possible.”
Now hold on just a second. The technologies that seemingly drive these new conceptual breakthroughs are driven by the lack of a product or service to fulfill a particular want or need, more so the former than the later. That lack of a product or service is something we as designers call an opportunity. It’s the opportunity that drives the technology that leads to innovation.
Don cites a number of products that he claims were driven by technology, including: flush toilets, indoor plumbing, electric lighting, automobiles, airplanes, cellphones, the internet, etc. Saying that design research didn’t lead to these innovations is widely inaccurate claim.
Let’s take flush toilets and indoor plumbing as an example. At some point someone got tired of doing their morning constitution in an outhouse and saw an opportunity to make a better product. Did they need to do an in-depth year-and-a-half ethnographic field study to determine this? Um, no. You can thank Sir John Harrington and George Jennings for taking the plunge and designing the flush toilet based on the desire not to do their business in the woods. They invented the technology needed to create something they saw as an opportunity, not the other way around.
The Wright Brothers researched, designed, prototyped and failed countless ways before their epic win at Kittyhawk. All that work in designing, testing and prototyping is design research. Howard Hughes made a number of innovations in aviation, including the flush rivet, based on observations that rivets that stuck up above the service created drag and were less aerodynamic. Again, that’s design research.
The Internet? DARPA created it as a means to share information on defense research between a number of universities and researchers. They made an observation and used design research to come up with a crazy idea that drove to the creation of the technology that is now the Internet.
Technology didn’t drive these innovations, it was merely the road. The driver was an opportunity for invention and design research was right behind the wheel.
One last quibble I have with the essay comes at the end where he calls designers and researchers to step aside and let the technologists lead the way, because design research is largely irrelevant. According to Don, we should leave innovation to the technologists. I’m not making this up:
“…although creativity and imagination are essential, design research, market research, and our beloved careful assessment of people’s needs, whether visible or hidden, are largely irrelevant. The inventors will invent, for that is what inventors do. The technology will come first, the products second, and then the needs will slowly appear, as new applications become luxuries, then “needs,” and finally, essential.
Once a product direction has been established, research with customers can enhance and improve it. Beforehand? Leave it to the technologists.”
No, Don. Innovation doesn’t lie in the hands of the technologists. Innovation lies in the hands of those who see an opportunity. That can be a technologist, a designer, a research, or a soccer mom. Maybe you want to step aside and let technologists innovate, but as a designer and researcher I will continue to leverage design research in my design practice. Regardless of what you claim, I have first hand experience with it leading to both evolutionary (over 20 to date) and revolutionary (too many to count) innovations.
It’s official. After nine months of research and nearly two years in the making, my book, Prototyping: a practitioner’s guide has launched. I wrote Prototyping for anyone who’s involved in the process of designing (software) products. If you’re a designer, developer, or business person involved in designing and building products, chances are you’ll find something beneficial in Prototyping.
The first part of the book provides a number of helpful case studies and tips for selling prototyping to your boss and clients as part of the design process—one of the biggest challenges we face in the user experience field today. The next couple of chapters provide eight guiding principles I’ve developed in the past couple of years for improving the success of prototyping in the design process.
Then you’ll find six chapters packed with hands-on tutorials for prototyping with paper, Powerpoint, Visio, Axure RP, Fireworks, and even HTML. Each chapter starts with the pros and cons of the methods or tools, then walks you through basic and advanced techniques for using the tool. You’ll find the example files for these chapters on the book’s website. You can even grab my iPhone stencil for Fireworks—entirely vector.
And finally, I wrap the book up with a chapter on how to effectively prepare for and conduct usability testing on your prototype. I even include a sample waiver you can use with participants and a test guide.
This book wouldn’t have happened without the help and support of a number of people. First, I want to thank Lou Rosenfeld and the advisory board at Rosenfeld Media. I really learned a lot in the process.
I hope every author out there is fortunate enough to have an editor who balances tradition with the willingness to try something new. My editor, Marta Justak, did just that. I can’t thank Marta enough for working with me on this book and ensuring that it stayed true to my vision.
I’d like to thank the following people for contributing their wisdom to this book: Bill Scott of Netflix, Anders Ramsay an independent UX consultant, David Verba of Adaptive Path, Robert Reimann of frog design, Chris Pallé an independent UX consultant, Victor Hsu of Axure, Scott Mathews of Xplane, Tom Humbarger of iRise, Robert Hoekman, Jr. of Miskeeto, Joe Sokohl of Regular Joe Consulting, Nathan Curtis of EightShapes, Henk Wijnholds and Stefan Wobben of Concept7, Jonathan Baker-Bates of Expedia, and Fred Beecher of Evantage.
I also had a number of brilliant people review the chapters I wrote on specific methods and tools to make sure they were accurate. I’d like to thank Jeff Patton, an independent UX consultant and Agile coach, for reviewing my paper prototyping chapter, Anders Ramsay for reviewing my chapters on Visio and HTML, Alan Musselman Lead UI Designer and Fireworks Evangelist at Adobe for reviewing my chapter on Fireworks, and Fred Beecher for reviewing my chapter on Axure RP Pro.
And last, but most certainly not least, I’d like to thank my wife, Angela, for gently reminding me that this book won’t write itself.
Now, what are you waiting for. Go pick up a copy of Prototyping: a practitioner’s guide, start prototyping and change your design process forever. And when you’re done reading it, don’t forget to write a review on Amazon.
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