Title: How IDEO Designers Persuade Companies to Accept Change
Context: Having trouble designing for someone? Try designing with them instead.
Synopsis: The job of a designer is hardly limited to the act of designing. Especially when working for — and with — clients that are decidedly remote from the problem the designer is expected to address. The less invested these laissez-faire stakeholders are the less likely they are to value the outcomes of the design process. In one sense, this could make the designer’s job easier since indifferent clients are hard to disappoint. Unfortunately they are equally hard to impress. Not that we design simply to dazzle the people we work for (we’d much rather amaze the customers of the people we work for, and have that amazement trickle up the economic food chain) but we certainly want them — no, need them — to be invested in the final product outside a merely pecuniary capacity. Success must be owned for it to be appreciated, and, more importantly, repeated. Getting individuals involved in the process which yields the outcome is the metaphorical lesson in fishing versus the short-lived benefit of simply handing over a dead fish.
Best Bit: “But every intervention involves designing experiences for a project’s stakeholders that go beyond logic and engage the emotions inherent in the question ‘Why should we change?'”
via hbr.org
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