3 Powerful Design Methods to Help You Overcome Any Obstacle

photography by Marc Shandro

“After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board” -Gary Snyder

One thing I’ve learned about working at a design and consulting firm is I’m never short of interesting projects to work on—whether we’re redesigning condiment packets, or designing a safer work flow for the operating room, or making electronic devices easier to interact with—I get the opportunity to work on a wide range of design projects.

So how can one consistently produce innovative and meaningful solutions to various and sometimes seemingly random design challenges? There’s definitely a process we use, and I’ve broken them down to 3 simple steps you can start using.

Observe

“The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes” -Marcel Proust

Before you start to do anything, always observe. Try observing all things, big and small, black and white, rich and poor. The reason is, we, unfortunately, act as the first filter to any observation. When something is introduced into our lives, we start to adapt and accept it. And the more it becomes part of our lives, the less we’ll notice it or ever ask why it’s always been like that.

For example, consider something we all take for granted like brushing our teeth. When working with Oral-B, designers observed kids brushing their teeth and discovered most of them held the brushes in their entire fists rather than their fingertips. This insight led to the creation of the first kids’ toothbrush with a fat handle.

photography by Xander!

If one were to design this toothbrush without observing first, one might believe that designing a bigger toothbrush for kids would be silly since adults have bigger hands. Logically this might make sense, but observing real life will tell you otherwise. Because of the fatter handle, the Oral-B toothbrush became the world’s best-selling kid’s toothbrush.

Polls, statistics, ratings, focus groups and questionnaires are useful at times, but they can also be too focused and lack the proper context and subtlety to paint a meaningful picture. As much as possible, go out in the field, as nothing beats the first hand experience. Observe often, as behavior, culture and technology are constantly changing. Observing is the difference between coming up with a mediocre idea or an innovative or sometimes even revolutionary one.

Generating Ideas

“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.” -Lloyd Alexander

After observing, you may feel like you have the solution, or sometimes you might feel like you’re going nowhere. Normally the answer is not going to jump at you. So the first thing you should probably do is figure out a way to sort and visualize all this information. Graph it, plot data points, create categories or whatever will help you spot any emerging trends, patterns, or anything unusual.

Like a good mystery story, the best part is when you end up asking more questions than you initially started with. This is a good place to be and also a good time time to start crafting your HMW or “How Might We?” questions. Broad questions like “How might we design a better toothbrush?” or “How might we help people save money?” or sometimes the dreaded “What should I do in my life?” can leave the best of us scratching our heads. But by providing a certain level of insight, one is in a better position to effectively answer these. Better questions lead to better answers. Using the first case study as an example, researchers realized that kids grip toothbrushes with their whole fists when brushing their teeth, so they asked how could they design a better toothbrush.

Or sometimes insights are correlated in some way. For example, researchers discovered that most American moms have difficulty with saving money and that most moms also round up to the nearest dollar when balancing their checkbooks. So the designers asked themselves how they could help people save money better. This question generated many ideas, and one ultimately led to Bank of America’s successful “Keep The Change” offering. According to BofA, 99% of those who signed up for “Keep The Change” have stayed with the program.

photography by The Consumerist

Coming up with the actual idea is a little bit like playing detective in a good mystery. Sometimes the answer is in plain sight, and all it takes is that one clue to help you piece everything together. But how do you get that one piece? What will push you closer to the answer you’re seeking? Many ways will lead you to good ideas or concepts, but it can takes months or even years.

For us we like to speed things up by examining the big picture and in several diverse points of view. Notice the “We” in the “How Might We” question. When generating ideas it’s good to have a few brainstorming sessions with people of different backgrounds, ages and professions. People interpret and approach problems in all sorts of ways, so invite your friends, coworkers, focus groups, and even unfocused groups to your brainstorming session! Brainstorming is not a means to an end, but a start of the creative design process. It’s the time to collect as many ideas as possible, to arrange or merge existing ones or cross-pollinate them with others. Effective brainstorming is an art in and of itself, which I will talk about in a future article, but the main thing to remember is to ask the right questions to individuals with diverse points of view.

Prototyping and Iteration

“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” -Buddha

After brainstorming, you may have generated and collected a lot of ideas, and hopefully some you want to go forward with. Sometimes what happens at this stage is what I like to call analysis paralysis. Typical questions surface like, “I’ll need at least a million dollars in funding” or “It’ll take years to make this” or “What if I don’t like it?” Whatever it is, and no matter how great your idea is, it’ll stop dead in its tracks once you start getting into the habit of focusing too much on these questions. Granted there are problems that might require one of these in the end. There’s no rule that says you can’t start out small, in our case, very small. Also who’s to say these ideas will even work in the first place? You first gotta test them!

During your first round of prototyping, strive to build as many crude prototypes as you can in a single day or even in an hour, whether they take the form of a sketch, a model made out of everyday items, a video, skit, or anything to convey or articulate the essence of the idea. Feedback from your friends, coworkers, and especially from yourself is really the key here. You’re essentially building to think. Better to make a bunch of cheaper mistakes now than realize you just blew your life savings away with one untested idea three years down the road. Remember even the stuff that’s out there is constantly being iterated and refined—all the latest software, iPods, cars, fashions, even rice cookers, are in a constant state of change, so don’t feel bad if your idea is not 100% ready. Putting it out there will give you the necessary feedback, in effect, faster refinements. As a rule of thumb, you’ve reached a good point when you can’t really put anything in or take anything out.

Although I’m just skimming the surface of what we do, this is essentially our design process. I’ll focus more on each step and methods in future articles. Just keep in mind, as with most things, it takes practice. It also takes an environment and a culture conducive to providing and enabling this. And although I listed the process as just three steps, think of it as a cycle, and at times it may take a number of cycles to find the answer you’re looking for.