This way of thinking isn't new to me. In 2011, during my master's, I designed Rimino, a project built entirely around bringing a human touch to the mobile experience. It's an early example of a way of thinking I still carry into every project today.
I'm driven by a desire to make technology more human. I believe in a future where technology becomes less visible and more integrated into our lives, shaped around what people actually value.
This is the thinking that has shaped my work over the years.
Design is just a way of seeing, doing, and thinking about things. Anyone can apply design to pretty much anything. Design creates options. Those options can solve problems or improve the lives of people, and the society that they live in.
We design things for humans, so we need to be informed and inspired by them. This inspiration can be deeper than understanding what people do, why they do it and what they say they need; it is ultimately about understanding what they really value.
Building prototypes is an effective way to think. And the faster we make things, the sooner we realize what works and what doesn't. Prototyping can also help us come up with new ideas that we could have never thought of otherwise.
Design can be about creating new options rather than making the best choice out of the existing alternatives. Exploring wild and abstract ideas and building on them paves the way for innovative solutions. We need to embrace ambiguity, uncertainty, and failure, and trust the approach.
It is unlikely that one designer always has the right insight and can come up with the most innovative ideas. A diverse team that values collaboration, and building on each other's ideas, can take us to a place we can't get to with one mind.
The solutions to today's problems are not always found in products, but rather in systems or services. Design can effectively be applied to a broader set of system level challenges and in a bigger range of contexts.
We can shape a future where technology is less visible and more integrated, a future that is more aligned with what we need and want as people, instead of our needs and wants being dictated by technology.
This way of thinking isn't new to me. In 2011, during my master's, I designed Rimino, a project built entirely around bringing a human touch to the mobile experience. It's an early example of a way of thinking I still carry into every project today.
While I was involved in university education, I put together a fun little booklet about design, kittens, and space, as a simpler way to introduce students to how designers think.
Talks & Explorations
REFRESH2016, Amid Moradganjeh, Design without designers
UX Tartu: And what will designers do in 2031? - Amid Moradganjeh