This weekly newsletter shares resources for product designers (since 2021), brought to you by Dianna Deeney.

I traveled by car, bus, and train to make it to the ASME technical conferences in Washinton, D.C. earlier in the week.

Design Justice was a big topic. These design processes are moving the designer away from the center of the design. Design Justice aims to incorporate the user into the design process and design decisions. It's a paid position. It's different from Design for Usability. Design Justice is most easily applied to civic and community-based designs. I say easy, although it's not.

Another student studied Makers and their design process. Have you ever seen the show Making It? It's those types of Makers that she studied. My take-away from our conversation (during a breakout of the Design Justice track) was that we may be able to engage our customers better if we encourage them to participate in the design by using mediums they are familiar with, including textiles and other crafts.

What I've seen most often, in industry design, is using customer panels and customer outreach and surveys at certain points of the design process. These are used as a sort-of go/no-go check: are we still designing something you want that will work for you? We can also gauge what features they like and don't like. This might include evolutions of prototypes, or prototype options. In this case, we're the Makers.

How about your thoughts? What kind of techniques do you use to incorporate the user into your design process?

2102 Kimberton Road #89, Kimberton, PA 19442-9912
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​