“Alternative perspectives: services, products and human-centred design” – by Stuart Bailey

Today we were given a very interesting talk by Stuart Bailey who is a current tutor at the Glasgow School of Art. The presentation examined design techniques and methods that designers can use to create innovative solutions. Many of these principles can be applied to our current project, titled “The Future of Food”.

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One of the elements discussed, that I can include in my own project work, is the use of service design as a tool within product design. For instance, a smartphone is an appliance to access a range of services in the form of applications. Similarly, Autodesk doesn’t sell software as packages, it now exceeds existing as a product and is a portal to encourage creativity. It turns a profit by acting as a service for designers. Stuart tied this into a discussion about human-centred design. This was summed up well by a quote from K. Krippendorf:

“design is making sense of things”

The user’s perceptions of the product directly impact whether it is successful as a product within itself. It should make clear sense to all stakeholders and they should want to use it. The example used were ugly and often unused emergency buttons for the elderly or vulnerable. The technology is efficient and they’re functionally sound so why are they disliked? Plastic, beige devices with a red button look ugly and feel low quality. The perception the customer has is a negative one, so how can the product and system be improved?

To develop products as part of a wider, more complex, system Stuart explained the difference between person-centric and system-centric design processes. This encouragement to use different approaches for the same product makes me consider how I’ve been approaching briefs up until now. Different approaches increases the awareness of the parameters and understand why customers want and need the product. To incorporate this into my work, I want to map out who the stakeholders are and how they interact. Through research this will help to create personas so that I can better understand their needs. I want to identify the key elements and friction points for home fermentation including the emotional connection of people to these steps. These observations will help me to develop how I can raise engagement with my “Future of Food” outcomes.