Design Practice
Design Practice

Why can’t designers solve more meaningful problems?

Every few months, somebody in our industry will question why designers don't use their talents to solve more meaningful problems; like alleviating the world from illness, hunger or debt. This statement will often be illustrated with a story of how a team from IDEO or Frog spent 3 months in a sub-saharan village creating a new kind of water pump, a micro-payment app, or a revolutionary healthcare delivery service. The implication being that if these people can do it, why can’t you?
Design Practice

What the hell is design thinking anyway?

In a meeting a couple of weeks ago, one of my colleagues asked me to define “design thinking”. This question felt like a potential bear trap—after all “design thinking” isn’t a new or distinct form of cognitive processing that hadn’t existed before us designers laid claim to it—but I decided to blunder in regardless.
Design Practice

Digital Education is Broken

Ever since I started blogging in the early the naughties, the emails came in. At first in dribs and drabs, one every few months. However by the end of the decade they were one or two a week. Emails from disgruntled students who had spent up to £9k a year on tuition fees, and even more on living expenses, to find themselves languishing on a course that was woefully out of date.
Design Practice

Can the balance between divergent/convergent thinking explain mid career peaks?

Divergent/convergent thinking is a fundamental part of the design process, and something most experienced practitioners are familiar with. Essentially the design process is broken down into two phases; a phase where you open up the problem space and explore as many different directions as possible; and a phase where you start analysing all the possible solutions you’ve come up with, in order to settle on the perfect answer.
Design Practice

Design like a Michelin Star Chef

The England of my youth was a desert for good food. The difference between a "good" restaurant and an average one lay mostly in the surroundings; that and the use of slightly more expensive ingredients. But white cotton table cloths and snooty service weren't enough to hide the mediocre food that lay therein. That’s why I used to relish my regular trips overseas, to eat at restaurants where the owners actually cared about what they were producing.