In its most basic definition, design is about how elements are arranged to achieve a particular purpose. Design always deals with things that are tangible, experienced, and present, rather than with abstractions or theories. Objects or services can be designed to create certain feelings or thoughts, or to invite certain behaviors. In this sense, the use of behavioral insights has always incorporated aspects of design: it is concerned with practical problems (like choice architecture) and is sensitive to how the wording of a letter or layout of a waiting room can have a big impact.
For any design to be successful commercially the functionality has to be complex enough to derive a viable creative solution. Regardless of the other design considerations, it turns out that the functionality of parallel parking a vehicle was not a complex manoeuvre for consumers to buy five wheels vehicles in the 1930s.
“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”
Perfectly summed up by Steve Jobs. One aspect of involving various parties across the table in a co-creation exercise is precisely to enrich our knowledge and thinking about the user needs or behaviours.
The Double-Diamond model of design is a design-thinking methodology in 4 distinctive phases - Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. (Discover) Designers diverge in a co-creation initiative using research methods in defining the right problem to solve (Define). (Develop) They diverge again to iteratively explore ideas in a team by building prototypes before converging again with solutions aimed at mitigating the problem (Deliver).
Designing sustainable product resources, at the same time educating the masses about disposing trash safely or recycling could go a long way in saving the environment.
‘Taste The Feeling’ - look closer and you realize, people are the product in Coca-Cola’s bubbly print ads. (Agency: Ogilvy Dubai / Client: Coca-Cola Middle East)
The ‘perceptual shift’ is made of 1,252 painted wooden balls hung with braided fiber by Brooklyn-based sculptor Michael Murphy.
The piece was created with the USA’s national security agency’s (NSA) ever-expanding surveillance program in mind.
Trident Gum (packaging concept by Hani Douaji)
Applied Geometry in Design
Shapes and lines can have powerful psychological effect. It is well known, for example, that most people prefer rounded corners on geometric shapes, which are perceived as “softer” and “friendlier” than pointed corners.
There is also research suggesting that the orientation of a shape can also have a powerful psychological effect.
It is therefore important for any designer to make a study of the psychology of shapes, lines, and colors, learning how these may affect the viewer. This is of greater importance in visual design.
“The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.”
Paul Rand
