One of the themes we constantly hammer home to our clients is the value of design. It’s a topic that cannot be summed up in a few sentences but rather requires a long and hopefully engaging dialogue about why investing in design is good for business. An initial hurdle we have to tackle before that conversation can happen is what exactly we mean by “design.”
Let’s run down the list. Web Design. Interface Design. Application Design. Experience Design. Visual (or graphic) design. It’s pretty safe to say that just saying “design” isn’t enough. Most people think of design in the visual sense (e.g. fashion design or interior design). We can easily get pigeon-holed as graphic artists that can whip up some nice icons and colors. We know we’re a lot more than that and we also know how important design is to us. So where do we start?
How about a dictionary definition? I like this one:
- To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent.
- To formulate a plan for; devise.
- To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. I think the single most important message we can convey to our customers in the business world is the value of design as a means of mitigating risk. It’s a lot less painful to find a flaw in a design phase than to find that flaw in the actual product. The cost of flipping the pencil and erasing a flaw in a design is a lot cheaper than discovering that flaw in the actual product. Such flaws don’t necessarily have to be your typical software bugs. They may be simple interface design flaws that can be tackled with a lot less impact in a design phase than after a product is half built.
For us, design is about forethought. Thinking through a good end-user experience. Thinking through a sound architecture that will scale effectively. Thinking through whether the goals we’re seeking bring real value to the intended beneficiaries of our products. Once the hard work of thinking through the design of a product is complete, the remaining task – building it – is far less painful; far less risky and as a result, far less costly. When we “design,” the pitfalls and roadblocks are considered and a plan is formulated.
There will be many entries in this blog that will hone in on the value of interface design or the value of spending the time to design a good architecture, but for now we wanted to hit on the underlying theme beneath them all: design as a synonym for forethought.