Design Darts: A Model For Design Strategy
I completed a course called Design Strategy for my last semester of grad school. At the start of the course, I created a model of what I believed depicted a design strategy. You can view my original model here:
After taking the course, I realized that design strategy is a lot more complex than my initial understanding. My first model didn’t explore how a design strategy is actually formed. Animesh Gupta gave me some helpful feedback on my first model. He wasn’t sure where he needed to start or end, and in general he thought it looked like a dart board. I took his advice to heart, so I set out to refine my model to show the complexity behind a strategic design process.
Design Darts: Definition & Model
Strategy is a game. To win, designers need influence. Design Strategy is the ability to influence decision making with a focus on desirability.
Strategic Design is the process, or ‘game plan’, used to achieve this influence. No strategic design will look the same.
Design Darts: a model for design strategy.
How My Model Works
For my refined model, I had three goals:
I decided to roll with the idea of a dart board to exemplify that in real life, strategy is about ‘playing the game’. Plus, this is a creative and fun way to remember the concept.
I sought to use this analogy in my model to show how strategy can be used as a way of influencing desirability in decision making, or in other words: winning the game.
I wanted to incorporate the tools and methods discussed in class so that my model could guide my own strategic design process in the future.
My model, which I call the Design Darts Model, works similar to a real game of darts. To win Design Darts, a designer needs to hit each of the six sequential steps around the circle including the bullseye. Every step is needed to form a design strategy. The outer and inner rings are worth more points than the main circular area. These rings include the tools and methods designers can apply to more effectively advance design strategy within their organization. Just like in real darts, getting these rings are difficult but will help a player get closer to winning.
My model involves concepts from class discussions and the book Strategic design: Eight essential practices every strategic designer must master (Source 1). I breakdown and describe each section of my model below.
Inner Ring: sequential steps of a design strategy
Envisioning: Reframing allows designers to connect contextual factors together for a possible future vision.
Inspiring: Rapid Co-creation (RCC) is a method which uses both visualization and co-creation to inspire others to see the value in design.
Simplifying: Designing Transition outlines the leadership styles needed to simplify design projects based on shared vision and ownership.
Structuring: Process Understanding involves six practices and abilities which help an organization structure the design process.
Embracing: Assessing Viability allows designers to build a business case so that business strategists can embrace a designer’s insights.
Educating: Capacity-building is the ability to coach six design principles so that design thinking can be leveraged and embraced by everyone in an organization.
Outer Ring: strategic practices
Aligning and Translating encompass the outside of the model because these methods can be used at any point in the strategic process. Designers can tell customer stories to align multiple stakeholders together, and they can audit an organization’s resources and capabilities to translate the feasibility requirements.
Bullseye: the hardest target
The center of the target is the designer’s character. Do you want to know why? For the following five questions, I elaborate on my model and reflect on the lessons I learned in this course.
What are some of the most commonly considered/used context variables? Is there a common pattern or a list of most important variables that are applicable across most design projects?
Each strategy my team and I developed this semester involved a different context which resulted in different variables. However, it was interesting to see similar context variables appear despite having three different design challenges. Here are the three most common context variables I noticed:
Personalization: The need to tailor products based on the user is the most common context variable I saw while doing the design challenges. I wouldn’t say every project needs to consider personalization as a context variable, but this certainly is a commonality. In a lot of ways, it makes sense. No two users are the same, so why should design treat everyone the same way?
Engagement: Engagement can take a variety of forms, but in general it refers to keeping users’ attention. This was especially true for our second project, in which our team built a strategic model capturing education trends 10 to 15 years from now. The interaction between students, teachers, and technology was paramount for this domain. I believe this context variable is a result of emerging trends towards interactive technologies such as online social platforms, AR, and VR.
Prioritization: This is a context variable which surprised me. In several different contexts, users desired expediency of information because time was a crucial factor. In one case, we empathized with truck drivers who needed to quickly contact a repair shop during emergency breakdowns. In another scenario, we realized the importance of allowing business executives to sparse through a plethora of news information from various sources. It appears that there is a common need here: people don’t want to waste their time!
The aim of context variables is to identify which factors are the most important in a certain context. This is what guides the strategic decisions behind a user experience. If there was one context factor which most design projects should apply, it would be accessibility. According to the CDC, “about one in four people (26%) in the United States have some sort of disability” (Source 2). Not only is it the right thing to do, soon accessibility standards will be required by law. From a legal and business standpoint, accessibility is a strategic factor which designers have a responsibility to advocate for.
Which frameworks or concepts from the book resonated with you the most? Are there any additional strategies/experiences you learned while working on the three projects?
One of my favorite frameworks from the book was from Chapter 3’s designing transition. On my model, this is step three: simplifying. The simplifying framework shows how to assess circumstances based on shared vision and ownership. What I found particularly useful is Figure 3.2, shown to the right. This is a powerful diagram. Why? It reveals which leadership style to assume depending on the vision and ownership of a particular project. To be a strategic designer is to be a leader. Good leaders know how to effectively motivate people to achieve a common goal. This is something that is hard to teach in a design program, which is why I find it refreshing to see in this book. Sure, this diagram doesn’t capture every variable important to a design project, but it still provides a useful way of approaching leadership. Having this framework can help me lead in a way that is appropriate for the project at hand, and it gives me a realistic goal to strive for. That’s why the middle bullseye of my model is an individual’s character: it’s the hardest thing to perfect, but is essential to being a good leader.
I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Marketing. One of the things I was most looking forward to in this course was bridging the gap between business and strategy. I wanted to know how these fields interacted with each other in the real world. “Strategic Design” did just that! The authors refer to this process as intersecting, which occurs at stage 5 in my model. As the authors put it, “It is recommended that designers and their business counterparts are co-located throughout the design process, so that conversations and iterations (intersects) can occur organically, rather than just at key stages of the design process” (Source 1, p. 183). They proceeded to share anecdotes showing how business analysts and designers work together to develop a business case. Based on these stories, one of the biggest advantages designers provide is the ability to actually test business ideas before committing to them. During my undergraduate degree, I did countless case competitions to develop business solutions for different problems. What I realize now is that those solutions were simply speculations (oftentimes glorified through fancy suits and pompous presentation). Designers ground ideas with real people instead of market data, and that’s why they need to collaborate with business analysts. Designers don’t just come up with ideas, they validate them through prototyping and user research. I was so happy to understand how I can leverage viability and desirability through the concept of intersecting.
I’ve already spent a lot of time on this question, so I’ll keep my second answer brief. While working on the three projects, my biggest takeaway was just how important it is to learn from the client or stakeholder. Seriously. Without interviewing our stakeholders and asking them questions (even the stupid ones), I would have felt completely lost. Collaborating with stakeholders isn’t just convenient, it’s necessary!
Are there any variables, design strategies, or strategy frameworks that are not covered or emphasized much in this book/coursework and something that you would want to add?
One thing that is missing from the book is the importance of individual character. It is mentioned somewhat indirectly, but for how important I consider this to be it is sorely missing as a core theme. As my definition states, strategic design is an ability to influence other people in regard to desirability. There is a common saying, “it’s not what you know but who you know” which gets at my point here. People don’t want to work with people they don’t like. It’s common sense really, but if a designer is not likeable then they will struggle to build the respect needed to influence key decision makers. This further supports why I put character in the center of my model. A designer can use all the other practices, knowledge, tools, and methods in the model, but if they have poor character they will struggle to obtain influence for desirable designs. At the end of the day, the best strategy in design is to be likeable and a good person.
Furthermore, character can be defined by a design philosophy. What the designer values and holds as a mindset will influence their strategic decisions, for better or for worse. Reflection can help a designer grow from their experience and refine their philosophy over time. In many ways, this assignment is helping me evaluate how I myself view design and strategy. This introspection into character isn’t really present as an idea in this book, and that’s okay. It’s not a priority, but I do think it’s necessary to consider it for strategic purposes.
What part of the design process do you think is the most strategic? Explain why that part of the process is the most strategic.
Well, in reality there is no single design process for every situation, so in this case I’ll use my refined model! Out of the six sequential steps in my model, the final two parts, embracing and educating, are easily the most strategic. The book calls these two stages the “embedding” phase because it’s about making design strategy, or desirability, a core tenet within the fabric of an organization. When a design project gets handed off or delivered, it’s the design strategy which will determine if it is to be accepted, modified, or rejected. Again, for design to be strategic, it needs to have influence. I’ve come to view strategy less about planning and preparation and more about influence and power. If an organization is to value designers, it needs the capacity to understand and appreciate the economic benefits of the design process. This is manifested during the embedding phase (five and six in my model), which is why I believe it is the most strategic part of the process.
Comparing the first and last project, how does strategy influence your design output now? What other factors do you consider now that you did not consider before?
Looking back at my progress from the first project and last project, I noticed three new ways strategy impacts my design projects.
Telling the story. To influence decisions, designers have to motivate people to take action. During the last two projects, my team and I put more emphasis on storytelling so that we could communicate our ideas more effectively while presenting. We wanted to show, not just tell, how our strategy would play out. I think I grew a lot in communicating design strategy through presentations. Most importantly, my team and I would consider how to present ideas based on the audience. It’s not what is put into a presentation that matters but what people take away. During our last project, we put a lot of consideration into how we would tell the customer story. Using a persona, emojis, and a storyboard, we were able to focus on what was important for our stakeholder to take away. I think this was our best presentation because we used storytelling to focus on our strategy.
Prioritize context variables. One thing that really helped me throughout the projects was to identify the most important context variables. In every project, we used affinity diagrams to group our research insights together and focus on a few key factors which we believed were the most important to prioritize. From a strategic standpoint, focusing on the most important context variables is a useful way to maximize an organization’s resources and capabilities. Additionally, this gave our project direction by focusing our efforts on what is important and weeding through what to leave out. Identifying the context factors is a tool I will use in the future to design strategically.
It’s a team effort. The projects shed light on how a design strategy is formed. It’s not an individual effort, and it doesn’t happen all at once. The best way to design strategically is to be flexible in approach and consider everyone’s point of view. Strategy is difficult, especially for vaguely defined problems. Strategy can’t always be decided by individuals. Like the game of darts, it’s best played with other people, and it takes a team effort to win.
Are you ready to play?
References
Source 1. Calabretta, G., Gemser, G., & Karpen, I. (2018). Strategic design: Eight essential practices every strategic designer must master. Amsterdam: BIS.
Source 2. Disability impacts all of us infographic. (2020, September 16). Retrieved April 29, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts- all.html#:~:text=61%20million%20adults%20in%20the,have%20some%20type%20of%20disability.
