Design Decisions
To make great products requires many iterations with contributions from multiple disciplines and making good design decisions is critical.
Deciding on which design direction to pursue, which concept to take further, which design to make real is fundamental for a design leader. We have many design processes from the basic double diamond diverge and converge, user centered design, data driven design, plus other approaches, which all require design decisions to be made at its heart. How do we make good design decisions? What do we need to consider to address stakeholder’s needs and deliver the outcomes we desire?
Intuitionist and Rationalist
For creative leaders, making design decisions is often difficult as there might not be a clear path to take.
This is the 49/51 design problem that Joe Belfiore and I discussed frequently during our product making. You can follow all the right processes, do the quant and qual research, look at the funnel, the metrics, the results from your experiments and still end up with no clear choice. What do you do then?
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My design approach was to thread the needle between intuition with rational design direction.
Some might call applying your intuition as storytelling, evoking a narrative behind the design that speaks to the holistic value of the design. Intuition design speaks to how the customers feels when using the product, the emotive qualities of the design, the soul of the product. Intuition can come in the form of years of experience understanding customer behavior, culture, society, inspirations from broad ranges of influences from across the globe. Perhaps this is the “art” of design in an age of tech driven products. The art and the science of design.
As creative leaders, we are in the dawn of a new era of design, where generative design, and direct customer data allows us to create more with less effort, yet, it's evident that human intuition is still key and required in our design decisions.
Note, applying your intuition can come across as arbitrary and can create a challenging power dynamic between you and the team. Design leaders have to apply their intuition while also fostering and respecting the team’s perspective. Strong beliefs loosely held.
How do you apply intuition into your design decisions? Can you?
Principal Product Designer at Microsoft
2yThanks for the inspiring words. I guess the intuitions are from the empathy of the users, what kind of experience makes them excited, and what brings the biggest success to them...and then, create the principles, do the prioritization and make the decisions.
Thanks for sending this post Karen Kesler. This is great Albert. Maybe intuition is tied to empathy and listening (strong problem framing). Maybe this results from listening to others or having certain lived experiences. Designed solutions have a shelf life in the market - but does the related intuition ?
Managing Director of IDEO's San Francisco's studio
2yI am really enjoying your insights and learnings Albert. I find I am often balancing my intuitive and iterative process with highly rational, logical people. More often in a multi disciplinary team engineers lean more on a highly planned approach and rationalize a solution before being generative with their thinking. As a designer, I start without fully knowing the answer and let the process of “doing” help inform the path forward. We might all be traveling to the same destination, but there are many ways to get there. I am reminded of a story a friend told me. An artist, an engineer and an architect are walking down the street and they come across a church. The architect proposes a bet. The first person to determine the height of the steeple will have their lunch paid for by the other two. The engineer climbs to the top of the steeple and drops a led weight. The time taken for the weight to hit the ground gives distance. The architect goes to the town planning department and asks for the architectural drawings to determine height. The artist goes to the front door of the church, knocks on the door, and asks the vicar “How tall is your steeple?” Guess who bought lunch? There are many ways to get to an answer😀
Design | Prev. @ Revefi, ThoughtSpot, Microsoft
2yAlbert Shum I could't agree more with your thoughts on intuition and it's place in design. Especially when rational metrics are absent and insight fragmented, or overwhelming requiring filters to interpret. However the key takeaway for me is how you listen to your team, taking that understanding, their perspectives to fill any gaps and build bridges ahead.