I love backpacks!
Recently, I got a new backpack from ClanEarth after months of hunting for a perfect backpack that is stylish, thoughtful and versatile.
The backpack is designed thoughtfully, with pockets and organisers to keep your daily essentials organised even if you are the laziest person. A rolling top, hooks, and mounts have been thoughtfully designed to convert the laptop bag into a travel rucksack for additional gear. When details are paid attention to, a product can go from average to wow. Considering all of our carrying issues, they have added key hooks and other small but significant details.
A design that fulfills multiple needs and yet is stylish.
Let’s talk a bit about what is design and going deep into what is design thinking and how to use design thinking in your everyday routine.
What is Design?
How important Design is in our everyday life? How does it influence our perceptions? Is there a purpose for design?
Most people believe that design is all about making things visually appealing — like a decoration. Design is neither an art nor a science, yet it incorporates parts of both.
Design is for everyone, not just a selected few. Designing an app or website, as well as any other type of design, is a sensitive yet complex process.
It is the author’s vision, thoughts, and feelings that are expressed through art. While designers can use their work to express thoughts and leave impressions, this is not their primary goal. As a result, it takes the creative part of art and applies it to the creation of an item, a tool, or even an experience.
“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”
― Charles Eames, American designer, architect, and filmmaker
How does design affect our daily life?
Design surrounds us, whether we know it or not; it is found in the smallest places and items. Check out the book next to you, your phone, your favorite album cover, the website you’re browsing. You can see the album cover. All these items were executed by designers carefully and thoughtfully. Design helps involve us, to keep us connected to the world, to navigate our way into physical and digital spaces.
Let’s take a look at an example of Design.
We all are working from home and we sit in a chair for long long periods. Chairs can tell their own stories of origin, travel, and design.
And if the chair is not designed ergonomically or is comfortable, you should brace yourself for the consequences of sitting in an uncomfortable chair for an extended period.
An ergonomically designed office chair is not a luxury; it is a necessity that you must invest in if you want to increase your workplace efficiency.
What if you could buy a chair that allows you to sit comfortably for long periods while simultaneously assisting your body in resuming its normal posture?
Along with lumbar support, the ergonomic design incorporates features such as simple entry and exit from the chair, and adjustable armrests, headrests, and swivel capabilities. All of these elements work together to help you be more productive at work. You can quickly move around your workspace with caster wheels without having to get out of your chair, which saves you time and money.
Ergonomic design for a chair doesn’t have any kind of adverse effect on your muscles. Ergonomic computer chairs allow you to sit in an optimal position where your body feels completely relaxed. There is no stress or any kind of strain on your body.
Make sure before buying, to check if the object is designed as per users essential demands or not.
Visual and Design Thinking
Design Thinking is a process for solving problems. On the other hand, visual thinking is a skill to visualize intangible or complex ideas.
Visual thinking expresses ideas or thoughts by drawings, images, graphs, etc. The idea of sharing through images makes it much more efficient and helpful to communicate rather than just talking and writing, which means that we increase group effectiveness. It is very useful when working in teams. Visual Thinking complements the methodology of Design Thinking in particular during the process of development, which is why we use it and teach it during our workshops.
The main reasons and benefits for the use of the Visual Thinking tools are:
- With images, the human brain thinks better, i.e. it takes less effort to visualize an image than to read a word. Visual information is processed 60,000 times faster than text in the mind.
- The images help to describe relationships between objects that we might not see and which can suggest new ideas rather than evident solutions that will make us innovate.
- Draw the basics that represent concepts that in short will improve the communication of ideas. It’s something innate of human beings.
5 ways to use design in your everyday routine
They are results of design thinking, which combines logic, intuition, and systematic reasoning to develop lasting solutions. They are problem-solving techniques.
This strategy is not restricted to designers only; we believe that everybody can learn to think.
To begin on the road to better problem solving, you’ll find five simple but effective tips on how to use design thinking in your everyday lives.
1. Visualize Your Problem
Whether you solve critical world issues or deal with micro-level projects, visualization reveals important themes and patterns. Diagrams, flowcharts, and graphs from Venn help you to identify each part of the move and draw complex conclusions.
Creators can better interpret shades of information and trends with their ability to discover patterns.
2. Challenge Common Assumptions
This approach to questions helps you break down society’s standards and assumptions to start developing ideas from outside.
This reminds me of a story. Once a truck driver tried to pass under a low bridge. But he failed, and the truck was lodged firmly under the bridge. The driver was unable to continue driving through or reverse out which caused massive traffic problems, which resulted in emergency personnel, engineers, firefighters and truck drivers gathering to devise and negotiate various solutions for dislodging the trapped vehicle.
Emergency workers, engineers, firefighters and truck drivers gathered to devise and were debating whether to dismantle parts of the truck or chip away at parts of the bridge. Each spoke of a solution which fitted within his or her respective level of expertise.
A boy walking by and witnessing the intense debate looked at the truck, at the bridge, then looked at the road and said nonchalantly, “Why not just let the air out of the tires?” to the absolute amazement of all the specialists and experts trying to unpick the problem.
When the solution was tested, the truck was able to drive free with ease, having suffered only the damage caused by its initial attempt to pass underneath the bridge.
This example symbolizes the struggles we face where oftentimes the most obvious solutions are the ones hardest to come by because of the self-imposed constraints we work within.
3. Reverse your thinking process
Instead of becoming discouraged by major roadblocks, consider your concerns in reverse.
Reverse brainstorming enables you to approach complex problems from a different perspective. In the reverse thinking process, you consider what could aggravate the problem or why it cannot be solved.
Identify the problem, it should be evident what it is. Make a note on a paper or on the board.
Reverse the problem by asking the question “How can I make the situation even worse?”
You can see problems in a new light and decide what to prioritize by reversing the situation.
4. Empathize With Your Audience
Designers frequently wonder, “What greater purpose does my design serve?”
You can ask this question whether your situation involves coworkers, managers, friends, or even family.
For example, What is your audience’s, event organizer’s or network of speakers’ common struggle or goal? Are you speaking to Inbound marketing professionals or experts? Do you understand how difficult it is making cold calls 35 hours each week and struggle to close sales?
As a teacher, did you have a difficult student in your class?
Talking about a shared personal experience strengthens bonds between people.
5. Embrace Risk and Failure
Designers excel at innovative thinking for one major reason: they are at ease with risk and failure.
You must overcome your fear of failure if you are serious about incorporating design thinking into your daily life.
We can only achieve innovative ideas and solutions by accepting the possibility of failure.
Conclusion
The design has the potential to solve a previously unsolved problem or to solve it in a novel way.
Design Thinking is essentially a design-specific problem-solving approach that involves assessing known aspects of a problem and identifying the more ambiguous or peripheral factors that contribute to the conditions of a problem.
In contrast, a more scientific approach is used to solve by testing the concrete and known aspects.
Design Thinking is an iterative process in which knowledge is constantly questioned and acquired to help us redefine a problem to identify alternative strategies and solutions that may not be obvious with our initial understanding.
Design Thinking is frequently referred to as thinking “outside the box.”
