The Design Process

Trust the process, it works. There is an age-old adage, don't put the cart before the horse and this was something I came to understand as I engaged in the design process. The solution shouldn't come before a thorough ideation process. The first design team I was a part of (Know Before You Throw) struggled with this. We felt like we had the correct solution from the beginning before conducting significant research. It's likely we missed out on opportunities by not engaging fully in the design process. By the time my summer internship began though, I had more trust in the process. I was able to design without getting too attached to one particular solution. I certainly had my preference, but I trusted the iteration and feedback process to steer me in the right direction for my stakeholders.

It is incredibly important to record and track each decision made in the design process AND why that decision was made. This is especially imperative when working collaboratively. Design team members need to be on the same page and working towards the same goals, and keeping those decisions transparent allows us to do this. This was particularly significant during my internship project. I engaged in the initial stages of developing something for an organization and when my internship was over they needed to be able to pick up where I left off. Documenting my design decisions and rationale was vital to my work being useful to the company.

Time and time again, I've heard that designing is an iterative process. Developing my Digital Museum Tour Guides project is when I really began to understand this. I had to regularly go back to the literature, experts, and stakeholders as questions came up with each new iteration. Imagination certainly plays a role in addressing these questions, but the research contributes as well.