100 topics · Read, check sources and follow your curiosity.

A little room to wonder

Design

Design turns a question or need into a considered response. It involves understanding a situation, exploring alternatives and improving an idea through evidence.

Am I solving the right problem, or only making my first idea look better?

A close arrangement of overlapping paperclips in red, green, blue, yellow, white and metal.
Paperclips make an everyday design question visible: what must a small object do, and which details help it do that?Dietmar Rabich · Source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Understand before choosing a solution

A design begins with a situation, not necessarily a finished object. A confusing instruction might need clearer wording rather than a new app. Describe who needs to do what and where the difficulty occurs. Separate something you have observed from an assumption about what another person wants.

Open out, then focus

The Design Council’s Double Diamond describes discovering and defining a problem, then developing and delivering responses. Opening out means considering more possibilities; focusing means selecting what to pursue. It is a way to discuss the process, not a requirement to move neatly through four boxes without revisiting an earlier question.

A prototype asks a question

A prototype is an early version made to learn something. A sketch can test layout; paper labels can test wording. Decide what you want to find out before polishing it. Consider access and context too: a design that seems obvious to its maker may be difficult for someone using it in a different way.

Only if you feel like trying

Design for one small task

  1. Choose the task “find the right page in a notebook”. Write one difficulty without assuming an app is needed.
  2. Sketch two different paper-based responses.
  3. Choose one and explain what a simple private walkthrough could tell you, and what it could not.

Optional. Use paper or talk through the idea; no account, purchase or public sharing is needed.