Everyone is a designer
Module 1
We often see the final product of design. The beautiful building, techie gadget or time saving appliance. What you don’t see is the process that it takes to create these things that people use and love.
Design is process that enables us to deeply understand people’s needs and create things to make life better. At the heart of this process isn’t a magic formula to be learnt overnight, it’s a mindset. An approach that enables designers to continually create better and different things.
To get you thinking like a designer we’ve selected three short videos that we think capture different qualities of the creative design mindset. Each video is 10 to 15 minutes long. Once you’ve watched the videos we’ve suggested a few things you could try out to start cultivating some new qualities for yourself in your day to day.
The surprising habits of original thinkers
An organisational psychologist shares three lessons on what makes people original and how to strengthen this side of your thinking.
What adults can learn from kids
A child prodigy challenges adults to be more “childish” and embrace bold ideas, wild creativity and optimism.
Design Thinking - Noticing is empathising
As humans, we get used to "the way things are" really fast. But for designers, the way things are is an opportunity ... Could things be better? How? The man behind the iPod shares some of his thinking for noticing and driving change.
Key Takeaways
Be late to the party
Are you a planner or procrastinator? A moderate level of procrastination can actually boost creativity.
Embrace the right fear and doubts
The right kind of doubt and fear can drive creative thinking and innovation.
Have lots of bad ideas
Big ideas don’t just drop out of the sky. They come out of lots of tries and attempts. It’s quantity that gets you to quality.
Value quantity over quality, if you need to come up with an idea don’t sit there trying to think of the perfect one.
Instead get lots of ideas out. To practise the act of quantity try the 30 circles test one time a day.
What you could try...
After you’ve been given a problem, don’t panic. Instead think about the problem then put it out of your mind and do something else for a while. Go for a walk. Play a game. Let your mind incubate the problem before trying to solve it.
What you could try…
Don’t doubt yourself, doubt your ideas. Next time you have an idea capture the things about it that you think won’t work. Then keep trying things out, don’t be precious.
Instead of fearing failure embrace the fear of not having tried at all.
What you could try
Here are 5 ways to be more like a kid
See the possibilities not restrictions
Dream about perfection
Be open to failure
Ask more questions
Go to others for help
How to spot opportunities like a designer...
Look broader
We often limit ourselves by only seeing the thing right in front of us. Designer’s step back and look at the whole picture. What happened before someone was interacting with this thing and what happens after? What are all the different parts of this problem, both the ones we can see and the ones that might be behind the scenes?
Look closer
The devil's in the details. Even the biggest projects on a grand scale only work if the finer details are well planned. It’s easy to get caught up in the big vision, but it’s just as important to pay attention to the small parts.
Think younger
Young people ask questions that challenge things we just accept to be ‘normal.’ However, it’s the wild, crazy and big creative questions that can lead us to breakthrough innovations.