Image credit: John Lambert Pearson, “the design process”, April 4, 2007, Flickr
Title: Design Process is a Myth
Context: My way or the highway does not a design process make.
Synopsis: Prescriptive design processes are like prescription shoes, sure they may fit a lot similarly sized people but they are going to make most of their feet hurt after a while. Torturous metaphors aside, the way one person designs will not necessarily work for the person sitting next to them. Figuring out the ways in which you like to solve a problem can be an incredibly, iterative, personal and prescriptive process (remember the shoes?!?!) Just because I have a series of design steps that always work for me, does not guarantee their efficacy in anyone else’s process. This is not to say that their aren’t best practices, guidelines or even universal truths when it comes to defining a common design process (i.e. don’t design while wearing another person’s prescription shoes) but knowing when to deviate from the norm is just as important as sticking to the tried-and-true when it comes to design.
Best Bit: “Bad product design is fixed by hiring good designers not by adopting a better design process.”
