Design is…a conversation
Quick refresher: “Design is…” is a series of articles, a living journal of my musings on the abstract, elusive and mesmerizing world of design. Design, not in the sense of beautifully arranged patterns on a medium. But, Design as a means to making life easier, making things “just work” and making things meant to help us actually achieve that goal.
So how is design a conversation?
I n the middle of a brainstorming session, I had an intriguing conversation with an esteemed colleague of mine. Out of nowhere, I told him that I just bought a MacBook and how much I love the experience of working on it. “Yes, MacBooks are great!” he chimed in and then continued, “However, once you hook ’em up with an external keyboard and a good monitor, how much of that experience is retained? Is it truly that much different? What exactly do you cherish about the experience?”.
Having just spent a bunch on a device I love, I better had a good answer for that. A couple of seconds passed and the only answer I could give was, “it just works!”. With or without another monitor, keyboard or any other paraphernalia. From the moment I touch the device, down to completing the most complex task of my day, it just works. The form, the function, the performance, the experience, the apps, the quality — all just personify the word “ease”. I cannot even exactly pin point how it accomplishes that. It has its share of pieces that can be done better but the positives clearly outweigh the problems.
The conversation with my colleague went on for a few minutes but the thoughts it sparked in my head led to more musings.
Innovators are trying to say something
MacBooks and many more great experiences in today’s world (Google search being another one) make me wonder about the dynamic between solution creators aka the innovative companies and the consumers. The companies which make these ideas happen have a problem they are trying to solve. They have something they stand for and want to convey that to me and millions of users like me. But they do not want to convey that in words. Not in an email, not through a post card and not by broadcasting on loud speakers. They choose to convey that, subtly, through the design of the products and experiences they put into the hands of customers. In how they position elements at every pixel. In how they design the tactile experience. In every update they rollout. In how they define their product lines and price them. In how they make it available to masses, package them and kick start the experience from the very first encounter with a new user.
But if design was a means for creators to convey what they want the customers to know about them, then the title of this article should be “Design is…communication”. Design is is a tad more than that.
The users and consumers have something to say too
There was a time when technology, products, solutions and services followed a one-size-fits-all model. Things were still evolving. Now, in this age of personalization, the users expect to be heard. And they want to do it not by calling the call center, not by writing an email, not by raising a zendesk ticket and definitely not by responding to survey forms. The expectations are such that the companies must work harder to figure out what is working and what is not. If the user had to search for a particular address by spelling a street name 3 different ways, the company must intelligently spot that and solve it. If the voice assistant is unable to understand a single command even after trying with five different sentences, dear creator please go figure! If a website makes it difficult to find a product, sense that and respond! If the user loves the touch screen sensitivity of your devices, the research team better know it and leave that part untouched. The user’s voice is all the more important in your product and service design and is an ongoing stream of feedback that only the design-minded companies tap onto.
To make this automated and intelligent capture of user’s likes and dislikes perpetually, the design of the solution must have “eyes and ears”. The design must be adaptable, capture hidden clues of the make or break moments and convey the user’s voice back to the innovators.
This two-way dynamic between what the brands stand for vs what the users are asking for is an ongoing form of communication. And in today’s age, the abstract medium that facilitates this communication in perpetuity is DESIGN. The design must be such that it takes the brand’s purpose to the user in the form of every design decision. The design must be such that it “listens” to the users and responds. The companies and solutions that design for this smooth form of ongoing communication end up with great products.
How to apply “Design is a conversation” to your next design problem
The metaphor of design as a conversation can make sense at different levels for different readers but it is still quite an abstract concept. So, it can be difficult to apply it in your next design endeavor. Here are a couple of ways you can use remodel your next design approach by thinking of design as a conversation:
Use design to convey and drive home your key messages
It is a common misconception that brand messaging is the core responsibility of the copy or the text in your collaterals and advertisements. However, design has a bigger role to play here. A few steps to design the first part of the conversation:
- Create a checklist of you top value proposition(s) and subtle key message(s) you want drive deep into your users psyche
- Then pick the top elements that form the most crucial part of the user experience you are crafting
- Make sure each of shortlisted elements convey all or some messages from the checklist
- Do additional designing if you are not meeting this goal.
- Example: If you are a company that makes home monitoring device which can be controlled from the voice assistants at home. Let’s say that your key message and value proposition is to instill a sense of security and control on the device. Then, you could make sure you “communicate” that with the design choices you make. May be, the voice based onboarding experience (which would be part of the top experience elements) includes setting up a voice based authentication. This would make the voice based management of the home monitoring system more secure thereby “communicating” your brand’s promise. Imagine doing this across multiple parts of your product’s experience design and the resulting value design can bring to the table.
Use design to invite the users speak their mind
Steve Jobs, the customer experience genius, said:
“And one of the things I’ve always found is that — you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it. And I’ve made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room…”
We all have seen surveys in our mailbox. Surveys which seem genuine and are really trying hard to get your opinion on how things could be made better. Surveys we all have ignored time and again. Surveys we have started to fill and abandoned mid way. Surveys where we just filled it with whatever was at the top of our mind so that we can claim the “goodie” that was promised for filling it.
The point is that feedback (in today’s busy, multi-faceted, technology infiltrated and heavily distracted lifestyle) is much more difficult to acquire, provide or monitor. Delaying it a few seconds beyond the key moments of experience pretty much destroys any chance of getting good, actionable feedback. And the user’s always have something to say through the entire continuum of any and every experience they get. We as a race have become more expressive.
So, when you are designing to solve your next challenge, make sure it’s not all about you conveying whatever it is that your value is or want you want your users to do. Your design — at a macro and micro level — must include avenues for capturing user feedback. You plant mechanisms to capture behavioral feedback as well as spots to provide explicit feedback right at the point of major experiences. Asking it at the end of journey or two days later in an email may not be the best idea — Its a broken conversation by then. More like a teacher introducing a topic today and asking if there were any questions 2 months later.
One of the key ways to truly harness the power of design is by making it a communication, making it a two-way affair.
- Example: When you search on Google, there is a place where you can provide your feedback (see image below). By doing this, Google, recognizes that with all the power of being able to analyze user’s behavioral data, it still needs direct feedback from its users to keep getting better. More importantly, it is subtly communicating back to the user that it cares about tackling online adulteration caused by racial issues, age inappropriate information sharing, online bullying, violence, etc. Most importantly, it is asking for it, right in the moment when the user actually has to share what they have to share. That is how conversations are done in a synchronous manner.
So there it is! There are often times when you are starting a huge experience design project that it seems too daunting. But as the human centered design principles teach us, if you have the user and their best interests at the core of your research and design, you will always be headed in the right direction. Treating design as a communication not only reminds you of treating every design decision as an opportunity to remind the user of what you stand for, but also grounds you in making all the efforts to listen to who you are serving. Then you can exclaim “Now we are talking!”.
Keep designing and make every experience you deliver a conversation to remember. Thank you for reading — until the next musing on “Design is…”!
