Author: sheilapontis
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How to Conduct Contextual Interviews in Design
Contextual interviews is one of the most frequently used method in design research. However, many students and designers underestimate the amount of preparation and practice needed to conduct effective interviews and elicit useful insights. This is because contextual interviews are more than a sequence of questions and answers. Rather, this type of interview resembles a…
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How to Conduct Observational Studies in Design
In design, observational studies are useful when you cannot talk to people directly or to better understand how people perform a task. This is because it is easier for people to perform a task than to explain how they perform it. As a design researcher, your goal will be to directly watch how people behave…
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Series 1: Understanding how to design for real people
As design challenges grow in complexity and ambiguity, the ability to understand people””not just data about them””is essential to developing human-centered solutions that address the nuances of human behavior and their specific needs. This understanding becomes particularly paramount when we are designing for a group of people that we are unfamiliar with, such as people…
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Are Designers Creative? Project
Developing creative thinking, and reconnecting with the imagination and the capacity to envision new futures and different realities is essential to address system-level challenges. Similarly, Don Norman, Ken Friedman, and Terry Irwin, among others, have indicated creativity as the skill to master in the 21st century. In the introduction to the Design Thinking, Design Theory…
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A bright start to each day: Clear instructions & human-centered products matter
Even the simplest of tasks, like making coffee in the morning, need clear instructions and taking the user into account. Last week we received a Cafelat Robot Espresso Maker as a Christmas gift. This coffee maker looks like a little, cute robot with each part carefully designed and wrapped. Every detail has been thought-through to…
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Redesigning Design Education: Better Together
These are interesting times for design. Those who have been involved in design higher education for more than two decades have seen how internal and external factors have influenced the education of designers: students, types of projects, the practice, the world, to name a few. Slowly, design education has been responding to increasing complexity and…
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Conceptual information design made easy!
The need for information design is even greater than before: explain COVID-19 rules, explain how to use masks properly, explain the many ways you can vote, explain new rules for flying, visualize COVID-19 numbers, etc. The list can go on and on. As information designers, it is imperative that we gain a deep understanding of…
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Information Design for Education: Rethinking Textbooks
Many people link technology with innovation and new ideas. This is particularly true in the context of education, and even more these days with remote learning, Zoom, Mural and other digital tools. And this is also true for information design as for many people interactive data visualizations are the way to visualize information. However, an…
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Why Designing Futures matters
We live in a world where everything is more interconnected, and everything we do has an impact on the planet. In addition, we experience constant rapid social, economic, technological, political, cultural changes that create more uncertainty and ambiguity in different areas of our lives. For instance, technological advances are great to help us perform some…
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Joining forces to better equip the next generation of designers
The world is changing. Problems are changing. Design is changing. Design education has been changing too. One of the main changes has focused on helping designers move into management positions to lead problems that are unframed and whose solutions are unknown. Some of these changes are reflected in the creation of new types of courses…
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Sh*t Stories Matter
Design has changed. And designers’ role has changed too. The Future of Design Education Group describes designers as “starting to address some of the major societal issues facing the planet.” Challenges of this complexity need creativity, original ideas and fresh points of view. Taking risks and exploring unknown paths are now necessities, not choices. However,…
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How to do field research from home
The last four months have been busy for Sense Information Design. We have been working on two big user research projects. The first project involved an evaluative research study, and the second one an exploratory research study. In both cases, our first choice would have been to conduct field research studies to examine the intended…
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