Designers do more than improvise solutions to the pressing issue in front of them. They always aim to solve the problem as a whole.
People who are not designers by profession are also good at solving problems. As a colleague recently said to me, “Everything is an act of design.”
At my local park, for example, the entrance nearest me starts with a short, steep hill.
The path is paved. It’s slippery in icy or rainy weather, and when seeds or leaves fall from the trees in spring and autumn. It’s difficult for people who use wheelchairs.
I still have bruises from slipping on it during a morning run over a month ago. I even saw a dog skid near the top, then coast down the hill in a sploot, trying to look casual.
So, people (and dogs) who use the park have created a desire path that cuts through a grassy, wooded slope
It’s diagonal, and therefore shallower. It's unpaved, and therefore less slippery. Mature tree roots serve as steps. I use it all the time.
But it’s not perfect – it’s still unusable for people who use wheelchairs or have limited mobility.
Here’s another example. I recently used a piece of wood I’d sawn off a too-long curtain pole to smooth the wallpaper I’d applied with lumpy glue. The brush I’d been using worked, but didn’t account for my substandard glue mixing skills.
Anyway, it worked for me, on that day, but wouldn’t work for someone with less dexterity than me, or someone who didn’t happen to have a cylinder of smooth wood lying around.
That’s the difference between the design we all do, to fix the problems in front of us, and the design profession, with its broader, more strategic view.
A designer might ask, what might be the universal solution to the problem of wallpaper applied with lumpy glue? One that works for everyone?
Or, who uses this park, and what’s the best way for them to get into it from the street?
Let’s say I and a group of designers and researchers were tasked with redesigning the path at my local park.
First, we’d define the problem that people who use the park are trying to solve.
There are many ways to do that research. One might be observing people who enter the park by that entrance.
We might also talk to people, to understand why they made specific decisions about using, or not using the path.
Then, we’d organise and analyse the information we gathered. We’d use that information to clearly state what people using an entrance to the park need, and why.
For example, joggers need a non-slippery path so they can maintain their pace without injuring themselves.
And wheelchair users need a low-gradient entrance so they can safely enter and exit the park.
And importantly, labradors need to look dignified while exiting the park – no splooting.
Then we’d come up with ideas. We’d start with lots – as many as we can think of – then narrow it down by challenging our own, and each other’s assumptions.
This stage works best in a diverse, non-hierarchical team where people feel free to be wrong and question things. We sometimes call that psychological safety.
Then we’d make a prototype, or several prototypes. They are usually low fidelity at this stage, which means they’re basic, without much polish.
We’d test them in different ways and go through a process of changing or rejecting aspects of the designs, or entire designs. Then we’d test a version of design with the people who might use it.
One of the ways we test it is to show it to people who will use it, and give them a scenario and task.
We watch to see if it works for them, and we ask questions in real time to understand why they’re making decisions, or struggling with things.
Everyday design, like the desire path in my local park, is important. As designers, we can learn a lot by the way people solve problems every day.
A desire path is especially helpful because it shows us a decision that lots of people have made over time. As the name suggests, it’s what people want, as opposed to what they’ve been given.
But we also need to understand the less visible decisions people make. For example, the decision to go further along the road and enter the park a different way. Or, to not use the park at all.
And we need to understand the range of needs people have. Those needs can be invisible to people who don’t experience them. But design teams are constantly finding ways to understand people’s barriers, and ways to remove those barriers.
By understanding the range of ways people solve, or want to solve the same problem, we can design something that solves a whole problem.