El diseño como proceso

Design Is a Process, Not a Methodology
By Pabini Gabriel-Petit
Published: July 19, 2010
“In this installment of On Good Behavior, I’ll provide an overview of a product design process, then discuss some indispensable activities that are part of an effective design process….”
My last column, “Specifying Behavior,” focused on the importance of interaction designers’ taking full responsibilityfor designing and clearly communicating the behavior of product user interfaces. At the conclusion of the Design Phase for a product release, interaction designers’ provide key design deliverables that play a crucial role in ensuring their solutions to design problems actually get built. These deliverables might take the form of high-fidelity, interactive prototypes; detailed storyboards that showevery state of a user interface in sequence; detailed, comprehensive interaction design specifications; or some combination of these. Whatever form they take, producing these interaction design deliverables is a fundamental part of a successful product design process.
In this installment of On Good Behavior, I’ll provide an overview of a product design process, then discuss some indispensableactivities that are part of an effective design process, with a particular focus on those activities that are essential for good interaction design. Although this column focuses primarily on activities that are typically the responsibility of interaction designers, this discussion of the product design process applies to all aspects of UX design.

Definitions of Terms

“Because there are so manyapplications of design in our modern world, people look at design from many different perspectives when attempting to define the term.”
First, let’s get clear on what I mean by these terms: design, process, and methodology versus method. (For those you who are not as fascinated by the nuances of the English language as I am, please feel free to jump ahead to “The Process of Design.”)

What IsDesign?

Because there are so many applications of design in our modern world, people look at design from many different perspectives when attempting to define the term. Design is both a verb—the process of design—and a noun—the product of design, as Kathryn Best notes in her book Design Management: Managing Design Strategy, Process and Implementation:
“Design describes both the process of makingthings (designing) and the product of this process (a design). … The activity of designing is a user-centered, problem-solving process….”—Kathryn Best
In this column, I’ll focus on the process of design. While Best has provided an apt definition of design, let’s consider some other good definitions. Kim Goodwin’s Designing for the Digital Age gives this definition of design:
“Design is thecraft of visualizing concrete solutions that serve human needs and goals within certain constraints.”—Kim Goodwin
Ivan Chermayeff, cofounder of Chermayeff & Geismar, a New York graphic design firm said this about design:
“Design is directed toward human beings. To design is to solve human problems by identifying them, examining alternate solutions to them, choosing and executing the bestsolution.”—Ivan Chermayeff
In the Cox Review of Creativity in Business, Sir George Cox, former Chairman of the UK’s Design Council defines design as follows:
“Design is what links creativity and innovation. It shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for users or customers. Design may be described as creativity deployed to a specific end.”—Sir George Cox
Michael Smythe, winner of the DINZ(Designers Institute of New Zealand) Outstanding Achievement Award for 2004, gave this definition for design:
“Design is an integrative process that seeks resolution—not compromise—
through cross-disciplinary teamwork. Design is intentional. Success by design simply means prospering on purpose.”—Michael Smythe
In his book Designing Business: Multiple Media, Multiple Disciplines, Clement...