Month: March 2020

This week, I read an interesting article about the criticisms of the design thinking method. The article titled “In Defense of Design Thinking, Which is Terrible” wasn’t written to bash on design thinking, but rather to help designers realize the importance of interacting outside their bubble. We can do this by being open to people in other disciplines and creating a welcoming community that is eager to share and collaborate. If we would like design to have a greater impact on the world, one of the first steps to take is to help others understand our ideas and thought processes so that they can grasp what exactly we do and see the value we bring to a team.

This week I learned a lot about the consequences of design, whether expected or unexpected. In some cases, the unintended consequences can be great! But in other cases, they might be detrimental to other areas that you might not have foreseen. In order to curb potential negative consequences of design, it’s good to ask questions during the design process like “At what cost…?” or use prompts to make sure you are staying true to your design’s original intent. In addition to these, it’s also important to be aware of the values that design is moving towards. These may involve inclusive design, circular design, or others.

This week I enjoyed reading from the book “Design is Storytelling” by Ellen Lupton. It uses pictures, text, and examples to show how design can lead your users to think, feel, or respond in different ways to your product. This week I read about the use of color and how subtle changes in a color palette, or even the words you use to describe it, can have a big impact on how someone might perceive your design! This is part of multisensory design, where inputs from different senses are taken into consideration in order to design something for a target audience.