Kick off a design project

An approach that designs from the people who will use something: understand their context, involve them, test with them and repeat until it works.

Avoid

Calling a project human-centered when nobody has talked to the people it serves.

A way of tackling open problems with design methods: understanding people, reframing the problem, generating many options and learning by prototyping.

Avoid

Reducing it to a workshop with sticky notes: without research with real people, it’s just brainstorming.

The collective creativity of designers and people not trained in design, applied throughout the whole process. It is a specific case of co-creation.

Avoid

Inviting people to co-design when the solution has already been decided.

A four-phase process model (discover, define, develop and deliver) that alternates divergent and convergent thinking twice.

Avoid

Following it as a rigid waterfall: in practice you go back many times.

A five-day process in which a small team understands a problem, proposes solutions, chooses one, prototypes it, and tests it with five customers.

Avoid

Running a sprint for small things that can simply be decided.

An approach that applies lean ideas to digital product design: form hypotheses, build the minimum to test them and learn fast, instead of delivering long documents.

Avoid

Using it as an excuse not to research or document anything.

Ways of working that integrate research and experience design into agile development, in short iterations and in parallel with the people who code.

Avoid

Reducing design to decorating what has already been coded.

A representation of the people, groups and organizations that can influence a project or be affected by it, with their weight and relationships.

Output

A map of stakeholders and their relationships

Avoid

Doing it once and never looking at it again: stakeholders and their power change.

A map of all the people, organizations and systems involved in a service and what they exchange: information, money, products or trust.

Output

A map of the actors in the service and what they exchange

Avoid

Drawing only your organization: the service also depends on others.

Four broad areas where design acts: symbolic and visual communication, material objects, activities and services, and complex systems or environments.

Avoid

Reading them as a ranking in which systems are worth more than objects.

A short set of rules, drawn from research and the project's values, that guide design decisions so they are consistent.

Avoid

Writing principles so general that anyone would agree (“be easy to use”).

A long, open, guided conversation with a single person to understand in detail their experiences, motivations and way of seeing a topic.

Output

Detailed accounts of experiences and motivations

Avoid

Asking for general opinions instead of concrete stories (“the last time you…”), asking leading questions or selling your idea.

Systematically comparing how other organizations or products solve the same problem, to find good practices and opportunities.

Output

A structured comparison of solutions, with good practices and opportunities

Avoid

Copying what competitors do without knowing whether it works for them.

Observing a situation from another field that shares a trait with the design problem; for example, waiting at an airport to rethink waiting at a hospital.

Output

Ideas drawn from a similar situation in another field

Avoid

Going on an outing without knowing what you are looking for.