spelling it out

A great piece of advice I got from Jeremy during our demo research project: "As consultants, you write EVERYTHING for your client". True. Found it very useful in other contexts as well.

"The biggest mistake in communication is assuming it has occurred."
David Hill, Yonder quoted by Kim Erwin in Theories of communication and information design class.

why not?

just re-stumbled upon one of my favorite quotes:
"Some men see things as they are and say why?
I dream of things that never were and say why not?"
George Bernard Shaw

listen to make, make to think

The Design Services Team (DST) at SAP has a guiding motto that I love: listen to make, make to think

to me that's all about not designing by shooting from the waist, but actually researching what the needs are, sitting down and thinking what that means, and using prototyping as a tool to help you think and get to a better solution.

it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
"how do I know what I think
until I see what I say?"
attributed to both E. M. Forster or W.H. Auden

presentaion zen

Over the winter break i took with me to india an excellent book, Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, an american (i think) now living in Osaca, and working as an associate professor of management at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan.

The book is about how to make more compelling and clear presentations, addressing tips for both creating a good deck and delivering the presentation in front of an audience. I found it very very useful and interesting, as he brings not just basic ideas, but also food for thought from other disciplines and a bit from zen philosophy.

The two that stuck with me the most for both design and life (more about them another time) are "Eat until 80% full" and "Be here now and somewhere else later, what's so difficult about that?".

I just found this shortened summary of the book, though I still recommend reading the book, but this might be a handy reference.

mayo clinic's SPARC approach

I liked this approach by mayo clinic's SPARC program. it's a great acronym that resonates well with how i think about the design process, just way more eloquently phrased.

SPARC = see, plan, act, refine, and communicate
it's meant to remind participants of the design-oriented methodology so they'll continue to employ it when they return to their departments.

A Prescription for Innovation, FastCompany article
SPARC program website

design synthesis by Jon Kolko

just heard a lightning round talk on Interaction Design Synthesis: Translating Research into Insight, by Jon Kolko at the IxDA conference, interaction 09.

jon had a definition i really liked of design synthesis, with every word in it to essential to the definition:

design synthesis is an abductive sensmaking process of manipulating, organizing, pruning and filtering data in an effort to produce information and knowledge

jon's website: http://www.jonkolko.com/