“Design is not personal expression…Designing for people at scale is not about my experience or the experience of a small minority…It is about going out there and understanding the audience at large.”
These quotes made by Julie Zhou while presenting at the AIGA Design Conference are some that have resounded in my head since my first listen. Statements that are a reminder to persistently create for the user, they are ones that should be carried throughout a designer’s career.
When working as a designer, it is a natural instinct to want to insert personal preferences. The problem with letting this instinct take over is that your needs can (and will) vastly differ from your user’s. When we think about a 28-year-old female designer we can anticipate she will have an altered set of needs than a user with opposite demographics. Therefore, it becomes design sabotage to keep only herself in mind. In order to keep producing fresh solutions you need to design for not one person, but the masses. In the end, successful designs are made along with impressive and versatile portfolios.
Ideation is the practice that helps to take us into a new realm of thinking. We widen our perspectives and think outside of our traditional thought processes. A technique such as storyboarding gives us a way to put ourselves in the consumer’s shoes. Who is the consumer and what is their journey? Other techniques like mind mapping and brain dump sessions force you to stretch your ideas. Quantity is preferred over quality when ideating with these techniques, which ultimately leads to a wider range of solutions.
Using ideation not only to brainstorm but also to think objectively about design solutions will ensure the most is being taken out of the experience.
Samantha Mantiglia 