🌱 What is design?
Design is the process of planning, defining, and shaping the environments in which we live. Everything we interact with has been designed — from the phone in our pocket, to the trains we travel with and the education system we have attended.
🌱 What does the design process look like?
The design process is used to innovate products and services, as well as for example cities, infrastructures, websites, digital interfaces, and even business strategies. According to the International Council of Design, the design practice focuses on the interaction between a person and the (hu)man-made environment by looking into the “aesthetic, functional, contextual, cultural and societal considerations”.[i]
🌱 What is design thinking?
Design thinking is essentially problem solving. In the design process, it is common to define the challenge or problem that a person — or the user of a given product or service — faces. From there, designers ideate, prototype, and test different solutions to the problem.
🌱 How can design create a good user experience?
To create as good of a user experience as possible, the design should factor in the expectations, personal preferences, background, and past experiences of the user. A central aspect of the design process is, therefore, to empathize with the user and actively ask for feedback throughout the process to avoid bias and skewed expectations. While there may be differences in how well a product, service or system succeeds in answering the needs of the user, design decisions have nevertheless been made along the way.
This post has been adapted from a newsletter written by Saskia Tykkyläinen and Christine Nikander for a collaboration between Palsa & Pulk and The E-Waste Column. The newsletter titled “What is the role of design in a just transition?” was originally published in both “The Just Transition Newsletter” and “The E-Waste Newsletter”.
[i] https://www.theicod.org/en/professional-design/what-is-design/what-is-design