Month: February 2020

This week, we read about prototyping. Prototyping can help any designer in any career or business. Prototyping allows designers to test out their ideas in a timely fashion while investing limited energy and finances. Prototyping is also beneficial when it comes to improving customer relationships. In the beginning stages, designers can have issues getting customers to adopt their design ideas. Customers often say “prove it” because of the lack of trust in the design. With prototyping, designers can show customers how the design is meant to work, while also working with the customer to make requested improvements and changes.

This week, I watched a TED Talk called Design is in the Details. In this talk, Paul Bennett discusses the idea of how big changes and success in designs come from the small details of the design and the small ideas. Bennett also discusses how the perfect idea could be right in front of us, but we have become so blind to it because we are looking too hard. In this case, the designers must take a step back and look at things from the consumers point of view. By taking the consumers point of view, designers are able to see the true issue and get an idea of the type of solution would be best for the situation.

In chapter 6 of The Shape of Design, author Frank Chimero writes how design never stops as we are in a world that is ever changing and always evolving. There are constant opportunities for design to shift and grow. Chimero states, “design is always in motion.”

In this week’s readings, we learned about personas. Designers use personas to create a better understanding of who their target market and users are. These personas are fictional, but the information used is based off of research from actual consumers. These personas are detailed in order for designers to further their understanding of these users; the personas can be looked at as a short story where the reader gets background information and life story information of the users. As designers use the information from the personas, they are able to think in the mindset of the users, rather than their own personal mindset.