Hasta La Ideas

Happy Monday! We have a special treat to help you jumpstart your week. Even with the arctic temperatures outside, this exclusive download guarantees to heat things up. Smart Design took some time at the end of 2010 to produce a calendar featuring their hot designers and even hotter designs. Thankfully, these pictures are too good not to be shared, and we got a chance to chat with the ladies of Smart to get the scoop. Clear some space on your wall and check out Mr. January…you can thank us (and Smart) later! Download the 10x10inch calendar here!

(more…)

Cheryl Heller posted a fantastic point of view on the Design Thinking movement. One which aligns with my personal take but instead of posting my interpretation, I’ll just let her tell it:

…”Instead of making design a more integral, universal and respected part of business, it creates another silo, another separation. Another category of specialists that builds one more barrier to the kind of real systems thinking we need to survive.

It lulls people into thinking they are being creative when they are not. It harbors procrastination and stereotypical thinking, substitutes process for real invention. It robs design of dimension by placing it solely in the world of the brain when design is much more than rational thinking – it is emotion and intuition and sensing and gut. When does a process become dogma? And why is our culture so afraid of the feminine energy? (Don’t answer that, I already know.)

It becomes another bit of ideology that makes it even harder for business to embrace a truly original thinker.”…

See her full post >>> HERE

This connects with a discussion about intuition or “gut” that has been going on in the discussion forums: read some of the discussion and contribute >>> HERE

Thanks Amina Horozic for the tip.

(more…)

Design is all about context. When that contextual information is removed, products can be very confusing. As designers we often see this when people are introduced to a new technology that is manifested in a design that breaks so strongly with tradition that they don’t know how to use it. We often try to build in affordances that allow them to relate their current technology to their new technology. Think of how the play button from your Walkman went straight to you Discman, then to your iPod, and as a digtal button on interfaces.

Of course the opposite is true as well. I recently heard of a grade school child coming across a old corded telephone in a junk shop and exclaiming to her parent “look, this way you won’t loose your phone!” … not realizing it was a necessary part of the technology. I haven’t seen it more well demonstrated or in a cuter form, than the above video! Enjoy a little Friday laugh at what todays kids think of your Gameboy you oldsters!

Thanks to ineo in the discussions forums for the tip!

(more…)

To get you inspired in the new year, we are kicking off this decade with a collection of four case studies from around the country. The featured case studies from our January issue highlight the power of collaboration across industries and communities. Check them out below!

(more…)

Lessons Learned From Listening
During one of my recent workshops, I was stunned by the nurses’ reactions when I asked them what changes in their routine would make their lives easier. After an awkward silence–I thought I had inadvertently misspoken–one nurse replied, “Nobody really asks us that.”

As designer/researchers at Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation (CFI), we provide a forum and voice for collaboration and participatory creation. Being embedded designers affords incredible access to patients and providers. For one “deep-dive” activity, designers interviewed over 30 patients in the patient cafeteria. We can shadow providers to glimpse into their day-in-the-life. We are able to understand first-hand what happens during a patient examination. I will always remember one of my first patient exam observations when a physician told a ninety-seven-year-old woman that she had a polyp in her colon. I remember how her two granddaughters, who had accompanied her, reacted with the possibility of their grandmother having cancer. I remember how the grandmother used humor to mask her fear while asking a myriad of questions about the future, and how the physician gently touched her hand and said, “we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Although rich and necessary information, user-centered research is not always welcomed or easy to corral in spite of being embedded in the institution. In wanting shiny new products and services, we move too quickly. This is a story about the lessons learned when we set aside our assumptions and slow down to listen and understand the needs of people.

(more…)