Appendix A: Maximizing Your Design Resources
Your company may possess more design talent than you realize.
To lead a design review, to identify the usability problems that stall so many business systems, and to propose solutions all require someone who has multiple skills. Ideally, this person is adept in leadership, proficient in collaboration, capable of objectivity, and able to generate and communicate a range of alternative ideas. Designers are trained to practice these skills, but others within your organization also may be able to effectively gather information and use the findings to develop solutions to some of your chronic softwareproblems. Here’s how to identify and maximize these valuable human resources.
The most effective design teams include diverse professional experience.Even if you have an information architect and interface designers on staff, other specialists within your rank and file may be able to make valuable contributions to the process of evaluating your current system and redefining your business needs. One of your sales or marketing experts may be more attuned to the needs of the people who use your system than the people who run it, and one of your communications officers should be able to help clarify the messages your system is sending.
The most capable designer in your group may not be the most stylishlydressed man or woman or the creative type who can assemble highly polished PowerPoint presentations. Find out whether anyone on your staff has experience in a profession dedicated to communicating visual information—graphic design, cartography, landscape architecture, or even filmmaking. All these specialties require techniques of observation and problem solving that are basic to the process of good product design.
In choosing someone to take the leadership role in a design review, look for someone who has an inclusive management style as well as strong subject-matter skills. The design process thrives on collaboration,so if your creative director works best alone, don’t ask that person to act as liaison between business analysts, technologists, and the people who use the system. A product manager might be a better candidate.
Because designers are problem solvers, it has been said that everyone is a designer. There’s some truth in that, because everyone has problem-solving skills. But designing a successful product also requires an appreciation that the challenge extends beyond technology and calls for a capacity to think strategically about the product and to envisionit in a larger context—the ways in which it will be used.
