posted by Mostafa Tohidifar @ 1:59 PM
0 comments
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Why design thinking is so hard for designers
“You can’t make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it.”
In our exploration of design thinking some people assume that it is the kind of thinking that designers do, but unfortunately this isn’t usually the case. For several reasons designers are predisposed against integrative ways of thinking.
To explain I’ll cite the example of the internal effort to fix the horrendous user interfaces of SAP’s software. A Wall St Journal article ($) this week quoted people at the company admitting to the poor design quality and describing their in-house effort to educate SAP’s engineers to be more sensitive to users’ needs. This is the designer’s goal: to design better products. A design thinker on the other hand might look at the whole system, observe that SAP has been so bad at designing UIs for so long that a massive culture change would need to take place before managers allocated the kind of resources needed to achieve significantly better designs. While this would be great, the design thinker would explore the option that UI design is not a capability that SAP should develop. One would ask if partners and customers are better equipped to design the UIs, and if SAP should simply build APIs into all the products. Would a director of design at SAP come to this conclusion? Maybe, but designers aren’t looking in this direction; doing so jeapardizes their ability to create interesting artifacts as well as the security of their jobs.
Another example is the revived discusion about working on spec, which rarely gets beyond a binary judgement of for or against. If one looks at the entire system, we see that clients have many options these days regardless of how designers like to structure engagements, presenting market forces that could ‘creatively destroy’ old transaction models. The design thinker would recognize this new reality, generate new approaches, and start experimenting. In the BusinessWeek case the job was relatively simple. Why not, for example, split the budget into three parts and commission three designs from three different firms? Each firm would have to invent a process that was profitable but is assured of being compensated, and the client still has a number of artifacts to choose from. This approach doesn’t heap glory and profit upon any one design firm so they probably wouldn’t suggest it, even if it could be better for the system overall.
The same Refrence
In our exploration of design thinking some people assume that it is the kind of thinking that designers do, but unfortunately this isn’t usually the case. For several reasons designers are predisposed against integrative ways of thinking.
To explain I’ll cite the example of the internal effort to fix the horrendous user interfaces of SAP’s software. A Wall St Journal article ($) this week quoted people at the company admitting to the poor design quality and describing their in-house effort to educate SAP’s engineers to be more sensitive to users’ needs. This is the designer’s goal: to design better products. A design thinker on the other hand might look at the whole system, observe that SAP has been so bad at designing UIs for so long that a massive culture change would need to take place before managers allocated the kind of resources needed to achieve significantly better designs. While this would be great, the design thinker would explore the option that UI design is not a capability that SAP should develop. One would ask if partners and customers are better equipped to design the UIs, and if SAP should simply build APIs into all the products. Would a director of design at SAP come to this conclusion? Maybe, but designers aren’t looking in this direction; doing so jeapardizes their ability to create interesting artifacts as well as the security of their jobs.
Another example is the revived discusion about working on spec, which rarely gets beyond a binary judgement of for or against. If one looks at the entire system, we see that clients have many options these days regardless of how designers like to structure engagements, presenting market forces that could ‘creatively destroy’ old transaction models. The design thinker would recognize this new reality, generate new approaches, and start experimenting. In the BusinessWeek case the job was relatively simple. Why not, for example, split the budget into three parts and commission three designs from three different firms? Each firm would have to invent a process that was profitable but is assured of being compensated, and the client still has a number of artifacts to choose from. This approach doesn’t heap glory and profit upon any one design firm so they probably wouldn’t suggest it, even if it could be better for the system overall.
The same Refrence
posted by Mostafa Tohidifar @ 5:42 PM
3 comments
Is Design the New Management Consultancy? Not Exactly.
Some folks are asking this question. I’ve spent the past two years making the transition from designer to business consultant, jumping a lot of hurdles along the way. Here’s a little of what I learned:
Highlight opportunities instead of bitching. As designers, we walk around in the world and feel overly sensitive to everything that isn’t designed well. We watch customers struggle when using poorly designed products. There’s an inclination to highlight these faults to executives whom we think should know about these faults. And maybe they should, but mostly they need help seeing the big opportunities. It might sound like product faults and market opportunities are simply the flip side of the same coin, but it’s the difference between being perceived as a whiny designer and a valued business advisor.
Know your limits. When I hear a designer say, “We were doing the same kind of work McKinsey would do” I think “You really have no fucking idea what McKinsey does.” I used to work at BCG (in the IT dept) and I have yet to meet a designer with thinking, methods, and tools nearly as sophisticated as those consultants. Just consider the career path at these firms: they take the top students from the top business schools who in turn have taken the top undergrads, and so on. Then the consultants work in a demanding up-or-out environment where excellence is necessary. This culture breeds great execution much more effectively than the best design studio cultures.
And I’ve beat the design thinking drum as much as anyone, but it’s naive to believe only designers think this way.
Invest in new hammers. Not every business problem is best solved by a product/service design or redesign. Sometimes an acquisition is the answer, or a divestiture, or hedging the financial markets. Business leaders have a lot of tools in their toolbox: marketing, sales, operations, finance, IT, HR, strategy, customer service, etc., and each of these in turn has a deep toolbox, with practitioners who all want more strategic influence. Understanding them — and knowing when product or service design is not the best approach — makes for a more well-rounded management consultant.
See the big picture. Sometimes design does have direct influence on business strategy. But describing that influence in terms of customer experience alone can lack the information that executives want to hear. Learning how to describe design’s benefits in financial and strategic language is key.
Be realistic about the influence of design. The current barrage of Fast Company and BusinessWeek stories on design can lull us into the impression that design is now king. In my experience, this isn’t anywhere near the case. Sure, there are great changes happening: I see more companies doing field research and more realization of the power of customer experience. But it’ll take years for the generations of business people to change their thinking and practices.
Know what you mean when you use the word strategy. Unfortunately, strategy has become a muddled word, the meaning even traditional management consultants don’t agree on (see Strategy Bites Back for an amusing look at the situation). But this is no excuse for us to practice muddled thinking. Here’s a simple way I’ve been clarifying it in conversation:
Product/service design: decide how to create something
Design strategy: decide what to create, with a perspective beyond the current cycle (e.g. 3-5 years)
Business strategy: decide what a business should do, with a perspective beyond the current cycle (e.g. 3-5 years)
Refrence
Highlight opportunities instead of bitching. As designers, we walk around in the world and feel overly sensitive to everything that isn’t designed well. We watch customers struggle when using poorly designed products. There’s an inclination to highlight these faults to executives whom we think should know about these faults. And maybe they should, but mostly they need help seeing the big opportunities. It might sound like product faults and market opportunities are simply the flip side of the same coin, but it’s the difference between being perceived as a whiny designer and a valued business advisor.
Know your limits. When I hear a designer say, “We were doing the same kind of work McKinsey would do” I think “You really have no fucking idea what McKinsey does.” I used to work at BCG (in the IT dept) and I have yet to meet a designer with thinking, methods, and tools nearly as sophisticated as those consultants. Just consider the career path at these firms: they take the top students from the top business schools who in turn have taken the top undergrads, and so on. Then the consultants work in a demanding up-or-out environment where excellence is necessary. This culture breeds great execution much more effectively than the best design studio cultures.
And I’ve beat the design thinking drum as much as anyone, but it’s naive to believe only designers think this way.
Invest in new hammers. Not every business problem is best solved by a product/service design or redesign. Sometimes an acquisition is the answer, or a divestiture, or hedging the financial markets. Business leaders have a lot of tools in their toolbox: marketing, sales, operations, finance, IT, HR, strategy, customer service, etc., and each of these in turn has a deep toolbox, with practitioners who all want more strategic influence. Understanding them — and knowing when product or service design is not the best approach — makes for a more well-rounded management consultant.
See the big picture. Sometimes design does have direct influence on business strategy. But describing that influence in terms of customer experience alone can lack the information that executives want to hear. Learning how to describe design’s benefits in financial and strategic language is key.
Be realistic about the influence of design. The current barrage of Fast Company and BusinessWeek stories on design can lull us into the impression that design is now king. In my experience, this isn’t anywhere near the case. Sure, there are great changes happening: I see more companies doing field research and more realization of the power of customer experience. But it’ll take years for the generations of business people to change their thinking and practices.
Know what you mean when you use the word strategy. Unfortunately, strategy has become a muddled word, the meaning even traditional management consultants don’t agree on (see Strategy Bites Back for an amusing look at the situation). But this is no excuse for us to practice muddled thinking. Here’s a simple way I’ve been clarifying it in conversation:
Product/service design: decide how to create something
Design strategy: decide what to create, with a perspective beyond the current cycle (e.g. 3-5 years)
Business strategy: decide what a business should do, with a perspective beyond the current cycle (e.g. 3-5 years)
Refrence
posted by Mostafa Tohidifar @ 5:30 PM
0 comments
Saturday, October 14, 2006
نورها و لمینتها
مترجم:م.توحیدی فر
red dot online: Light and luminaire design 2006
وابستگی بشر به نور و روشنایی انکار ناپذیر است.نورپردازی بخشی اجتناب ناپذیر از زندگی بصری آدمی ست و کاربردهای گوناگونی را شامل میشود.برای ایجاد امنیت و جهتیابی،نمایش اشیاء،اتاقها و معماری و همچنین تاثیر عمیقی بر روان انسان و چرخه زیستی وی دارد.
تاثیر نور بر ما و سلامت ما بیش از پیش آشکار گشته است حتی کسب و کارهای متوسط و کوچک هم به این نکته واقفند که نور پردازی مناسب در محیط کار بر سلامت افراد تاثیر انکار ناپذیری دارد و آنهم به دلیل افزایش نوآوریهایی در زمینه مفاهیم نورپردازی ست.
تاثیر نور به عنوان یک فاکتور مهم در بازاریابی امروزه حتی در گسترش مراکز شهر ها هم شناخته شده است و این خود متقابلا عاملی برای بهبود کیفیت روشهای نورپردازی گشته است.نکته شگفت انگیز شاید دانستن این نکته است که صنعت نور از معدود صنایع دارای رشد سریع و پویا در میان سایر صنایع است.بنا بر گفته کارشناسان گسترش صنعت نورپردازی تا سال 2008 تنها در کشور چین به رقمی بالغ بر 18 بیلیون دلار امریکا خواهد رسید.
و بر اساس گزارشات آژانس بین المللی انرژی،بطور متوسط 19درصد از انرژی جهان در زمینه نورپردازی صرف می گردد و در مقابل افزایش بهای انرژی وافزایش شدید آلودگیهای محیطی ناشی از مصرف بیش از اندازه انرژی سبب شده است تا انرژی نقش پررنگی را در این میان برعهده داشته باشد.
امروزه نیاز به نورپردازی هولیستیک که پیوندیست میان انسان و اقتصاد به اندازه نیازهای زیست محیطی احساس می شود. این یک چالش بزرگ میان صنعت نورپردازی ومفاهیم هوشمندانه و محرک نورپردازی ست.در اینجا طراحی به نحوی منحصر به فرد ،در مناسبات گوناگون، تاثیر گذار است .یک طراحی خوب-مشخصا در برابر پشت صحنه جهانی سازی وافزایش عنصر احساسات درمحیط زندگی بشر-می تواند مصرف کننده را به سمت تجدید نظر در رفتار "مصرف" ترقیب کند.
بعلاوه،طراحی باکیفیت،صرفا عامل ایجاد موفقیت اقتصادی برای یک محصول- و سپس برای شرکت سازنده- نیست. بلکه عامل اجتناب ناپذیری ست برای اجتماع خلاقه تکنولوژیهای نو در جهت موفقیت محصول در بازار.تنها با طراحی درست و دقت در موقعیت شناسی در فضای بازار جهانی است که امروزه شرکتها می توانند محصولات خودرا مدیریت کرده و به درک درستی ار آن برسند.
طیف رنگها،اشکال و موادی که امروزه در ساخت چراغها استفاده می شوند بسیار گوناگونند.در مقابل گرایشات متفاوت نیز به سختی تعریف میشوند.لیکن دو گرایش متفاوت و اصیل در باره ی طراحی شناخته شده اند.در یک سو کرایش به سمت طراحی مینیمالیستی که برروی ذات نور متمرکز است و دیگری کششی است به سمت نگاهی هنری و نورهای تندیسی مقطعی که نور را مقطع میکند.
محصولات جدید در زمینه "نورها و لمینت ها"،نتیجه فنآوریهای نوین بوده و شرکتهای سازنده بیش از پیش برای نو آوری و تحقیقات دراین باره سرمایه گذاری میکنند."دیودهای انتشار نور" نمونه معمول و مرسومی است و دارای توانایی باقوه ای برای حفظ سلامت روانی ما نسبت به لامپ های سنتی گذشته است.امروزه موضوع "نورپردازی و سلامت" نقش مهمی را در صنعت نورپردازی بر عهده دارد.سامانه ای که هم زمان، توانایی ایجاد تغییرات در نیازهای فیزیکی و روحی انسان را داراست و هم به شدت کم مصرف است( در زمینه انرژی) بی شک از اهمیت غیر قابل انکاری برخوردار است.
red dot online: Light and luminaire design 2006
وابستگی بشر به نور و روشنایی انکار ناپذیر است.نورپردازی بخشی اجتناب ناپذیر از زندگی بصری آدمی ست و کاربردهای گوناگونی را شامل میشود.برای ایجاد امنیت و جهتیابی،نمایش اشیاء،اتاقها و معماری و همچنین تاثیر عمیقی بر روان انسان و چرخه زیستی وی دارد.تاثیر نور بر ما و سلامت ما بیش از پیش آشکار گشته است حتی کسب و کارهای متوسط و کوچک هم به این نکته واقفند که نور پردازی مناسب در محیط کار بر سلامت افراد تاثیر انکار ناپذیری دارد و آنهم به دلیل افزایش نوآوریهایی در زمینه مفاهیم نورپردازی ست.
تاثیر نور به عنوان یک فاکتور مهم در بازاریابی امروزه حتی در گسترش مراکز شهر ها هم شناخته شده است و این خود متقابلا عاملی برای بهبود کیفیت روشهای نورپردازی گشته است.نکته شگفت انگیز شاید دانستن این نکته است که صنعت نور از معدود صنایع دارای رشد سریع و پویا در میان سایر صنایع است.بنا بر گفته کارشناسان گسترش صنعت نورپردازی تا سال 2008 تنها در کشور چین به رقمی بالغ بر 18 بیلیون دلار امریکا خواهد رسید.
و بر اساس گزارشات آژانس بین المللی انرژی،بطور متوسط 19درصد از انرژی جهان در زمینه نورپردازی صرف می گردد و در مقابل افزایش بهای انرژی وافزایش شدید آلودگیهای محیطی ناشی از مصرف بیش از اندازه انرژی سبب شده است تا انرژی نقش پررنگی را در این میان برعهده داشته باشد.
امروزه نیاز به نورپردازی هولیستیک که پیوندیست میان انسان و اقتصاد به اندازه نیازهای زیست محیطی احساس می شود. این یک چالش بزرگ میان صنعت نورپردازی ومفاهیم هوشمندانه و محرک نورپردازی ست.در اینجا طراحی به نحوی منحصر به فرد ،در مناسبات گوناگون، تاثیر گذار است .یک طراحی خوب-مشخصا در برابر پشت صحنه جهانی سازی وافزایش عنصر احساسات درمحیط زندگی بشر-می تواند مصرف کننده را به سمت تجدید نظر در رفتار "مصرف" ترقیب کند.
بعلاوه،طراحی باکیفیت،صرفا عامل ایجاد موفقیت اقتصادی برای یک محصول- و سپس برای شرکت سازنده- نیست. بلکه عامل اجتناب ناپذیری ست برای اجتماع خلاقه تکنولوژیهای نو در جهت موفقیت محصول در بازار.تنها با طراحی درست و دقت در موقعیت شناسی در فضای بازار جهانی است که امروزه شرکتها می توانند محصولات خودرا مدیریت کرده و به درک درستی ار آن برسند.
طیف رنگها،اشکال و موادی که امروزه در ساخت چراغها استفاده می شوند بسیار گوناگونند.در مقابل گرایشات متفاوت نیز به سختی تعریف میشوند.لیکن دو گرایش متفاوت و اصیل در باره ی طراحی شناخته شده اند.در یک سو کرایش به سمت طراحی مینیمالیستی که برروی ذات نور متمرکز است و دیگری کششی است به سمت نگاهی هنری و نورهای تندیسی مقطعی که نور را مقطع میکند.
محصولات جدید در زمینه "نورها و لمینت ها"،نتیجه فنآوریهای نوین بوده و شرکتهای سازنده بیش از پیش برای نو آوری و تحقیقات دراین باره سرمایه گذاری میکنند."دیودهای انتشار نور" نمونه معمول و مرسومی است و دارای توانایی باقوه ای برای حفظ سلامت روانی ما نسبت به لامپ های سنتی گذشته است.امروزه موضوع "نورپردازی و سلامت" نقش مهمی را در صنعت نورپردازی بر عهده دارد.سامانه ای که هم زمان، توانایی ایجاد تغییرات در نیازهای فیزیکی و روحی انسان را داراست و هم به شدت کم مصرف است( در زمینه انرژی) بی شک از اهمیت غیر قابل انکاری برخوردار است.
...ادامه دارد
Translated from an English text.All rights reserved for Red-Dot online
posted by Mostafa Tohidifar @ 2:26 PM
2 comments
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Why we can’t explain “Design?”
What a deep question! Anyone ask about “to be or not to be!” .Yes, obviously there’s a problem. Any Designer wanted to solve this problem. There are hundred solutions to solve this problem. But creative Designers will find unique way. There are 2ways with uncountable subways.
Smart Designers have a plan of streets and subways on their mind, wide and controllable. Controllable? u made a question about “to be or not to be”?
Yes. Control is an Instrument to find an address in a map/plan. finding ways, streets, highways, houses and titles on a map needs an smart sight(with Experience(next topic we talk about))
Of course it is easier to find an address by fallowing a map than looking for it by experiencing banned avenues! Probably you have experienced it but we can compare it by and Production Planning with Design Prose! i talk about linking both of these topics together. Finding an address in a map and finding the best Idea in Ideas maz! Yeah you found it. Management. Once a day I was reading a news topic saying: ”Design is Management!”…”what a fool man! Impossible, I just wanted to be a Designer,not a Manager” I said! But when I read that topic I said “I want to be a Manager” (with myself !) What’s the secret of “Design”? it has a management period! First Manage your Idea
2. your Instrument, Equipment and Abilities
3. your Money
4. your Environment
5. your performing team
6. your feedbacks
7. your development plan . . .
you see?! You want to be a “Manager” Design can be more and more!!!!…Because I went to a library and I was looking for “Design” books. There was many shelves including “Chemistry, Art, Mathematics, Physics, Philosophy and theology (human logy), Agricultures, Mechanics, Civil, Architecture, Healthy …and much more you can guess! I wished to buy all of them! Because Bionics (Biomechanics), Geometrics(math.), Static(Phz.), Ergonomics(Health), Esthetics(Art), Automation(mech.), Drawing(Art), Management(human.)…are some few subtitles we just think about them when we want to be a DESIGNER. Design is all of them and no one of them. Design is Design with its unique and magic avenues!
Smart Designers have a plan of streets and subways on their mind, wide and controllable. Controllable? u made a question about “to be or not to be”?
Yes. Control is an Instrument to find an address in a map/plan. finding ways, streets, highways, houses and titles on a map needs an smart sight(with Experience(next topic we talk about))
Of course it is easier to find an address by fallowing a map than looking for it by experiencing banned avenues! Probably you have experienced it but we can compare it by and Production Planning with Design Prose! i talk about linking both of these topics together. Finding an address in a map and finding the best Idea in Ideas maz! Yeah you found it. Management. Once a day I was reading a news topic saying: ”Design is Management!”…”what a fool man! Impossible, I just wanted to be a Designer,not a Manager” I said! But when I read that topic I said “I want to be a Manager” (with myself !) What’s the secret of “Design”? it has a management period! First Manage your Idea
2. your Instrument, Equipment and Abilities
3. your Money
4. your Environment
5. your performing team
6. your feedbacks
7. your development plan . . .
you see?! You want to be a “Manager” Design can be more and more!!!!…Because I went to a library and I was looking for “Design” books. There was many shelves including “Chemistry, Art, Mathematics, Physics, Philosophy and theology (human logy), Agricultures, Mechanics, Civil, Architecture, Healthy …and much more you can guess! I wished to buy all of them! Because Bionics (Biomechanics), Geometrics(math.), Static(Phz.), Ergonomics(Health), Esthetics(Art), Automation(mech.), Drawing(Art), Management(human.)…are some few subtitles we just think about them when we want to be a DESIGNER. Design is all of them and no one of them. Design is Design with its unique and magic avenues!
posted by Mostafa Tohidifar @ 3:34 PM
0 comments
Thursday, August 31, 2006
First post
First i thaought "is there a Communication?!"...after my registeration at Blogger,it requested my First Post.i understanded that this can be a Communication between me and world.becouse u read this text now!
Congratulations...!
(Attention1:Relationship not the same as Communication!)
to have any relations between your friends is deferent by Communication inside a community.many times,we mix up these means together.early days,scientists divided these means and "Communication" is an important part of IT...
but "Relation" is a subtitel of "Social sciences"!...
posted by Mostafa Tohidifar @ 10:52 AM
0 comments
