Design Operations Guide

Divergent Thinking 2

Gathering References, Communicating, and Making

An illustration of the convergent and divergent cycles in the design phase. The cycles are ordered like this: idea generation and concept mapping are divergent; project mapping, skills assessment, and budget making are convergent; references gathering and making are divergent; design analysis, testing, and evaluation are convergent; design expressions and design revisions are divergent; retesting and iteration are convergent.

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Gathering References

The first step towards getting your product, service, or system into the real world is to gather references. Because design teams evolve or create new products, services, or systems, there’s no exact photo or sketch or recording of the team’s concept(s) that exist(s).

References are collections of images, sounds, materials, products, and services that already exist; they help paint the picture of design teams’ concept. Designers “reference” these already extant products, services, and systems in order to communicate their design concept to leadership and stakeholders. In this way, references help design teams bridge the gap between their design concept the real world.

Communicating Design Concepts

At this point, you’ve analyzed your project’s affordances and constraints through convergent and divergent thinking, generated multiple design ideas, built those out with references, and discussed them and figured out what to forward.

Now is the time to bring stakeholders up to speed on what you’ve done. Going through this step will help you avoid missing key points of view, gives you an opportunity to start socializing your design, and clears the way for a rational, evidence-based assessment approach whose results will be accepted across the organization.

Pitfalls of not communicating

Without communicating at this point, it’s easy to find yourself revising and revising as people question your direction and methods, which causes the goalposts to move over and over again for the sake of someone saving face or taking credit.

Remember that you are trying to make impact. If you have agreement on the direction and testing, and you go out and find that the tests tell you the your prototype isn’t working, you’ll be much better able to bring that news to stakeholders if you brought them along in the first place instead of keeping your process under wraps.

Over the course of the entire HCD process, socializing approaches and being transparent sets you up to save yourself and your organization from implementing an ineffective strategy, and presents an opportunity to learn and create the next, better version.

Making

“FINALLY!” you might think at this point; “we’re doing design!” While it’s satisfying to get to the Making phase, you’ve been “doing design” all along. Making is simply the physical expression of your ideas; everything you’ve done until this point is “design”.

In the Making phase, you’ll create the first testable expression, or “working prototype” of your design concept(s). From here on out, it’s nothing but being disappointed and heading back to the drawing board as your work is tested to its limits, fails, and you have to make another prototype, and another, and another. Kidding! But not really. Enjoy the Making phase, but remember: you’ve brought intention and rigor to this entire process, so you’ve been “doing design” all along.