Mark Boulton recently wrote an interesting article – Design is Veneer (go have a read, I’ll wait). One of the points he touches on is that although not everyone is a trained (or experienced) designer, they are capable of learning some aspects of the craft – enough to be useful.
Many people would not class themselves as designers, but they can arm themselves with techniques to make themselves better at an aspect or technique of design.
This is the sort of thing I can see real value in – particularly when it comes to the ever-expanding startup space. I’ve noticed this particularly in my time recently in the Startpad in Wollongong, but also more widely in the past as well.
Design is one of the things within a startup which is often handled as some sort of ‘additional responsibility’ for someone with a different skillset (be it business, development or something else). It’s great to see a lot of startups are understanding the importance of design, and including a dedicated person for Design, but its still not that common.
The first point I would like to make is that this is an important consideration for anyone in the early stages of seeking a partnership, or forming a team. The Design of your product is an intrinsic part of the product itself. Design is not about ‘prettying’ up the product once it is complete – It is a vital component in formulating how the product itself will work.
If you are in a place where you can introduce some with training and background in design to your team – I strongly recommend it.
For all those companies that don’t have a dedicated designer – I see a couple of pretty common solutions that are used to ‘make do’ when it comes to Design.
The first, is that once the product is almost complete – they call in a designer to give it the once over. A quick coat of paint to give some spit and polish to what is already there. Although the results of this are often quite visually spectacular – it is a poor imitation of the possible value a designer could have. If brought in earlier in the process, a designer could help craft the whole product from a user-oriented perspective – doing more than just decorating.
The second is the trend you see amongst many startups of ‘The Bootstrap Site®’. Don’t get me wrong, Twitter Bootstrap is a great framework – beautifully designed, well thought out, and a great starting point. The trouble is that (most times) you can spot a Bootstrap Site® a mile off. Even with substantial tweaking – the DNA is so strong that a great deal of the individuality of the startup is hidden behind the generic bootstrap sheen.
In a marketplace where personality, drive, and ability to get things done are paramount – a generic looking website or app can really be problematic.
It seems wrong to point out these shortcomings without some sort of solution. It’s unrealistic to think that every startup will have the finances, or contacts to be able to have a dedicated designer on the team. So what is the alternative?
I’d like to revisit that quote from Mark Boulton.
Many people would not class themselves as designers, but they can arm themselves with techniques to make themselves better at an aspect or technique of design.
I think this is a possible solution. Whilst there is no replacement for a dedicated and trained practitioner of design – there are aspects and techniques of design that other members of the team can learn, practice and master that will make a BIG difference to their product.
Some incubators are already doing this – giving some level of design training and advice to their intake.
@jordesign We provide access to a team.Adaptive design, agile process to balance elegance and speed of learning cc@startmate @optusinnov8
— Pollenizer (@pollenizer) January 15, 2013
This is great to see – and I would love to see more of it.
I wonder if there is value in some kind of resource (be it online or in the physical world) that manages to get to the guts of design and draw out the important takeaways for startups. Almost like a Design ‘bootcamp’.
Something that covers the theory, but makes it relevant – perhaps workshopping on the existing product at whatever stage it is at. Teaching founders about the value and importance of design – and instilling them with enough knowledge about certain aspects that they are able to make educated decisions regarding the design of their product.
It’s something I’d love to think more about – and love to know what you think?
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I see your point regarding bootstrap, but do not necessarily see sites that look the same as being a problem.
With regards to when a designer is needed: in my opinion before code is cut. I’d say the best methodology there would be a modified version of agile, where the designer’s task is always one iteration ahead of the coders. A sprint series would look like: (1) prototype part A (1a) present to stakeholders and generate design backlog (2) Add part B to backlog (2b) prioritise design tasks (2c) Code Part A (2d) present to stakeholders and generate design and code backlog (3)…..
The challenge is the divide between function and what I’ll call ‘romance’ (from Pirsig, “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance”). I think that artistic minds and ‘coder’ minds think differently as to what is most important. Artist: “this looks beautiful and is fun to use” Coder: “your beautiful graphic takes too long to load, and not using the keyboard, means users operate this 4 times slower”. They both have a point. I think a solution here is to have an artist who can switch paradigms between both camps and, for example, give the coder data which shows information that matters to them.
If you want to know an internet designed by coders: (you may need to get a special browser): http://www.ucc.asn.au/~alastair/gopher.html
17/1/13 at 2:26 am
This is a better one because it goes to a gopher site via a proxy:
http://gopherproxy.meulie.net/gopher.robsayers.com/
17/1/13 at 2:29 am
With every passing year the lines between design, user experience, front-end and back-end development (as well as what’s ‘mobile’ and what’s ‘desktop’, and what’s ‘launchable’ versus what’s ‘finished’) get fuzzier.
I think we’re seeing a gradual democratisation of skills and knowledge, and over time, technical and non-technical founders are gradually becoming more conversant and discerning; about the whole product development Venn diagram, not just the circle defining their own original skillset.
Like Scott, I don’t think a product design that betrays its Bootstrap beginnings is necessarily a bad thing, or as obvious to target customers as it is to designers. Does it help convert visitors to trial users, and trial users to customers? Or does it hinder? Did you use the time and money you saved with Bootstrap to do something else that moved the needle? That’s all you need to concern yourself with (unless your target customer is a jaded startup front-end designer
One big plus with ‘making do’ design is this: if you find your product converts visitors to customers even with a ‘make do’ design, then it’s just a matter of iteratively improving design to get further improvements over time (which is what investors like even better than a great conversion rate that never improves).
When we plan a new platform for a startup client at The New Agency we try to fold in design thinking from the earliest collaborations, but it may not always be our UX/UI people doing all of that thinking — PMs, coders and marketers are learning UX every day the hard way — by using countless early-stage tech products that are often rough around the edges.
I think design bootcamps are a great idea, and I like the idea of ‘design weekends’ run along the lines of http://startupweekend.org even more — opportunities to collaborate in teams on UX and UI for products that don’t yet exist, or existing products that can benefit from some fresh thinking.
How to get started? Let us know if we can help pull one together…
21/1/13 at 9:23 pm