Designer's Most Significant Ability Is Context Definition

Expanding the notion of what it means to be a designer.

Designers most significant ability is to understand multiple contexts and, therefore, identify constraints. 

Designers are strategics that translate strategy into action. Design thinking-in-action.

The most important skill needed in most design fields is context understanding.
In a problem-solving oriented practice as design,it is vital understanding the context to identifying the constraints and limitations: It is a MUST if the final goal is to take an idea and make it real. So businesses are turning to designers when they want to find something new.

"Great designers bring ideas to life that will align the right solution to the concrete problem: To come up with the adequate solution, first you need to framed the context and its constraints..."

What is a failed design? The one that doesn't  work to solve the problem or request. It might be beautiful, espectacular, super-innovative... but if it's not the right solution for this particular situation, it is a failed design.

"The realization of a mature designer is that the act of making does not matter unless it is considered within the context that it exists". John Maeda  

Design With No Constraints Is Not Design. Identifying the right constraints that would provide the right strategy is vital.  What is design with no constraints? Is art.

I would say that mature designers, as Maeda pointed, are problem solving experts in multiple contexts: To take a more holistic view of how designers work, beyond the focus on the craft and the aesthetics, it's meaningful to point out how designers think -design thinking- and methodology which helps them cope with being THROWN into a situation/context as OUTSIDERS, understand what's the problem and their capacity to catalyzed the insights gathered into creative outcomes.

Design is one of the most empathic professions by necessity, because its own practice and its sucess is about understanding other professional practices and their intrinsic problems. (And their professionals and their particular idiosincracy).


"People who know a lot about a field seldom think to question the fundamentals of their knowledge". It is by questioning the obvious that we make great progress. This is where breakthroughs come from. We need to question the obvious, to reformulate our beliefs, and to redefine existing solutions, approaches, and beliefs. That is design thinking". Don Norman  

Designers are strategists able to translate strategy into action:
So businesses are turning to designers when they want to find something new. 

Design thinking is an essential business strategy. When deciding where to play and how to win, it's totally necessary to have framed and understood the context and the constraints...therefore, its opportunities.
Designers use data, metrics, product flows, and conversion funnels to understand contexts, observe behaviors and empathize with users... and art and aesthethics...and altogether is a great help to opening up new markets, reconfiguring existing ones and envision what would come next.

[Image: "Indonesia" film poster]

Design Thinking: Transforming Reality

los SAN. 44.00 ADC. Hallazgos de bastones de madera, punzones de hueso y ornamentos corporales. 

/ F. D'ERRICO / L. BACKWELL. El País

Human progress and Designers: Pioneers of Design Thinking.

One of the great paradoxes of paleontology is called the Great Leap, or sudden appearance in Europe around 40,000 years ago, advanced instruments typical of modern human creativity.

Design Thinking or "the process of a practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result" (Simon, 1969), is not a new resource as stated in various forums in Spain: It is a procedure that has existed since Humanity became a Global Community because some of its members-designers decided not to settled for what nature had given them and dared to "reform" and therefore, change the status quo, therefore, transform reality. How could I tear the skin of an animal .. .? How can I reach the fruit of the tree ...?

It all starts with a question: Why not ...?, What if I ...? How could we ...? what would happen if I...?

The artifacts belong to the San culture, one group of African Bushmen who, by all evidence, invented the modern culture of hunter-gatherers who quickly spread throughout the world.

Nothing has changed to these days (pattern nº1) : Designs that involve a real improvement in the lives of people spread at lightning speed and have the power to alter the known reality: Is the collective consciousness of survival that we all share that matches what is needed in each historical period? Why innovations don't usually match Leaders' mindset? (Pattern nº2).

In all human groups there is always someone who believes that reality can be improved, and a majority that prefer leaving everything just the way it is: and this is invariably a conflict situation (pattern nº3) which leads to these Designers to insist and insist on their idea or dream of improvement in many cases in a quite heroic way. It takes courage (pattern 4) to follow a inner impulse (instinct?) driven to change what is known and it takes courage too to accept these innovations because most of us are concerned about any kind of change: How am I going to react?, Where does it leads?, Will I have to change too? Staying just as we are gives us a false security based on the believe that the future is going to be just as the known past ...and that's not going to happen: Future cannot be decided, the future happens: Won't it be better create it, design it? At least we have to try.

There is always someone inventing new and better ways to get things done: Is it only the passion, an inner certainty impossible to avoid, is the urge to share the finding with the rest of the world?. The impetus of changing reality by inventing new ways of understanding has been punished throughout history as we all know: "How can you be so arrogant to think you can do something to change reality? How dare you question what most assume and approve? Do you think you are better than us?" (Pattern nº5). It's complicated to explain what leads some members of a community to strive, and why they insist on their idea or dream of improvement... Is there perhaps a mandatory interior map?. Albert Einstein said he desired simply to "experience the universe as a single significant whole." Nothing more, nothing less: see the big picture and reconcile the personal with the universal. This drive to fit all the nuances of life in a big puzzle is a hallmark of creativity.


Are empaths designers? Absolutely. One certainty is that any of us is that  unique nor special: we all are persons that need other persons. The designer needs to develop a sense of global community and also needs to develop an insight.


We are all creative, but there are people who see the world as an opportunity to continue creating and designing. It is a devotion. Creating is a goal in itself. If you also have a specific purpose, creativity and their own process, Design Thinking, becomes the more accurate tool for any challenge. 


There is always someone who identifies opportunities of improvement in reality that not everybody can see...and asks questions, What if ...? and challenge themselves, and set personal goals and commit to what they have planned. Is an inner impulse. And them again, the designer will have to insist and insist and fight against skepticism and overcome the impediments of their surroundings, their time, even their own family ...

My opinion? Possibly there is an internal search of the beauty of the result, meaning that the result is the fruit of the personal growth of all written so far and the tangible "proof"  that the "big picture" designed in a designer's imagination has been captured and implemented in reality, coupled with the certainty of having improved the community they belong.
The other vital impulse I will add is also entirely personal: the fight against oneself that involves overcoming patterns nº 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 90 ... and keep on believing in yourself, despite all of them: this is the most exciting personal achievement that one can obtain.


Surely there is someone around you trying to improve what he/she sees and what he/she lives. Listen. Chances are that it will benefit you in the future.

FAQS: Design Thinkers' Personal Questions

Before taking on any project, a Design Thinker has to analyze the situation to try to get an overview and personal insight. You are not always going to obtain all the information needed, but at least make sure that you do have compiled all the information you need to know about yourself in relation to the project that you are going to face. These personal FAQS are essential for you to decided if you want to be IN this concrete project. Of course, the answers to these questions only you will be able to evaluate them positively or negatively, but it is very important that you go through this personal process because it is of great to help you consolidate how to develop, nurture and settle the skills and behaviors you are going to need to confront the proyect....and because there are always comes a time in the course of a project when you doubt everything or have a particularly moment of weakness and uncertainty when you just want to run away... then remember the personal FAQS and the answers you gave to yourself: they will remind you why you got involved in this project!






FAQS >> DESIGN THINKER PERSONAL QUESTIONS :

1.  WHY I'M GOING TO DO THIS? Have a clear goal from the beginning. Never forget the beginning: It'd give you perspective.
2. WHAT FOR WILL I GET INTO THIS? Any personal developing you want to master?What impact will the project have on you once you' are done? Is it a good project for...?
3. DOES IT TAKE ME... WHERE? Try to get an overview of the steps you have to take to develop the project and assess if you are interested
4. DO I WANT TO GO TO THAT PLACE? Be aware that becoming involved in some projects may change your current personal and professional situation
5. DO I HAVE THE MEANS? In addition to the tangible media, do you have strength, are you focused, have the time?
6. IS VIABLE? Is there involvement in the participants, are they professional, have passion about it?
7. IN WHAT WAY DOES IT BENEFITS ME? Does it make me feel good? Personal or Professional.
8. DO I HAVE ANY PREVIOUS IMAGE? Or vision, insight, intuition?. Do not forget.
9. WHAT PARTICULAR ASPECT DOES INTEREST ME DEVELOP? Are you arriving this project at a particular time in your life when you want to develop certain skills ? Human-centered?
10. WHAT SHOULD I DO IN CONSCIENCE? Do not forget your own values ​​and keep them in mind
11. IS IT A SUSTAINABLE PROJECT? Or, Can I make it sustainable?
12. DOES IT GO WITH THE  FLOW? This is something you feel or not...
13. DO I HAVE A VISION OF IT? Do you See IT?
14. WILL I BE IN CONTACT WITH MYSELF OR AM I GOING TO LOOSE MYSELF IN THE WAY THERE? No personal neglect: do not become a new person and don't forget who you are. Work just as you are. At once. 
15. AM I READY TO FACE THE PROJECT? The answer is: Yes, No, or is a complex challenge but I will give everything. I take responsibility from beginning to end.

Important note: During the process of Project's Development could occur substantial alterations from the initial approach. For this purpose are also useful Personal FAQS: they function as personal thermometer and a device that keeps the cruise speed throughout the process. If you notice significant misalignments, have to stop and analyze. If changes are not assumable, must take action.


And ask questions!


Icons by http://thisisservicedesignthinking.com/

Design Thinking and Innovation experts

Experience is essential in the practice of Design Thinking and today, experts are design professionals who have practice DT systematically, because it is a KSF (Knowledge and Skills Framework) in their professions.

Design Thinking is not a practice learned in a manual nor a textbook: It needs to be internalized through practice. Seriously: does anyone really believe that Design Thinking can be applied with a manual in hand? or maybe with a few questions predefined in a form or reading a power point presentation? Experience is essential: a few encapsulated methods are not equivalent to the insights gained and internalized from the experience and analysis of years. Nor is empathy applied to a particular purpose and neither is integrate intuition in rational processes ... for example.

Most of the information about DT is about WHAT but none about the HOW: What is the KSF of Design Thinker, which are the skills needed to become a DT practitioner? By the way, this is a lifelong learning.

• Cultivate, care for and feed your personal MATRIX (set of life experiences, experiential analysis, conclusions, visions, revelations, ideas and images).
• Analyze what you do and draw objective and personal conclusions to each case or experience.
• Defend your certainties and learn to convince with arguments.
• The more connections you find to previous experiences related to a new analysis of a situation, the more security you'll have in your intuitive decisions.
• Feed your own theories. Create personal systems of knowledge.
• Do not forget your values at home.
• Listen, observe, learn.
• Share knowledge with anyone who wants to listen.
• Practice empathy. Need to care for people.
• Learn the rules and play by them
• Project the future in order to be sustainable:  you as an individual and everything else

Passion and positive ambition is requiered