Designing for the Digital Age (2009) by Kim Goodwin, Chapter 1: Goal-Directed Product and Service Design

Design is the craft of visualizing concrete solutions that serve human needs and goals within certain constraints. These solutions could be tangible products, such as buildings, software, consumer electronics, or advertisements, or they could be services that are intended to provide a specific sort of experience. Design must serve human needs and goals, accomplish something in an efficient, effective, safe and enjoyable way. Interaction design is a discipline focused on defining the form and behaviour of interactive products, services and systems.

One of the method is Goal-Directed Design which assumes the best way to design a successful product is to focus on achieving goals. It incorporates the goals of the customers and the business creating the product or service while encompasses the design of a product’s behaviour, visual form and physical form. The method provides a framework within which skilled designers can generate great solutions with the confidence that the method will help them get it right. The method consists of four components: principles, patterns, process, and practices. Principles are guidelines for creating good solutions under specific circumstances. Patterns are types of solutions that tend to be useful for certain classes of problems. process: the steps and techniques involved in planning and conducting design research, using it to develop personas, scenarios, and requirements, then using those to develop and iterate a design solution. Process depends in large part upon the project management practices that support it.

An effective design method supports designers in doing what they do best: visualizing concrete solutions to human problems. Goal-Directed Design helps skilled designers ensure thoroughness, timely execution, and consistently high quality of output. It also helps ensure that the design effort is not in vain by making the thought process transparent to the rest of the product team.

Personally, I believe that this method is a really effective way to shape and plan a team culture in creating a product. Especially, if it is to be applied in a team with a large number of people. I realised that it has the big categories, it also has its own small elements that are very practical as well. It is indeed not a one-time method but a skill that will definitely be developed over time. Thus, practicing is the best way to familiarise and make best use of the method as it is a long term implementation.

Reference
[1] Goodwin, Kim. Designing for the Digital Age:  How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services. 1st edition. John Wiley & Sons, 2009.