The aspect about demographics

When we go out to do research, we often meet professionals in the age group of 30-50.
Many of us in the design teams belong to the same age group.
Ironically, the solution is targeted to be used by the future generation. 

While I talk to a current user groping with this sudden boom of (e.g.) social media, I need to design a solution for a generation that pretty much grew up with it - cannot think of a life without it. Currently, this future generation is perhaps in their teens or getting a higher education.

Although, there are lot of talks about the aging populations, the new workforce etc. we spend so little time gaining a better understanding and insights into this potential new workforce.

Wouldn't it be great if we could invest time interacting with university grads etc to understand how they perceive their work places, work practices, tools etc.

Work in progress

I love how a low investment, rough document sparks so many discussions and conversations around it.
'Back of a napkin' is motivating me to keep things at stick figure level and it really really works.
It also somehow makes people look at your slide, maybe be a bit amused with it and basically, wake up and pay attention :)

Macbooks in an Enterprise

I started my career as a design professional, with almost zero training to use computers and a big Macintosh personal computer in front of me. I was comfortable working with it in a couple of weeks and in less and 2 months I was quite productive. I was unaware of the world of Windows OS then.

Switching to Windows OS was a pain.

Today, after almost 10 years, I once again have a chance to work in office with a Mac. However, I cannot believe I am even considering rejecting such an option to work with a regular Windows based laptop. The reason being, Macs have made a very slow entry as a company provided device. Hence it has plenty of IT support issues. To name a few:

• I need to configure many things myself, manually
• I need to manage my own backups
• The mail server does not archive on it's own
• There is no .pst support

I am not a geek. I do not want to spend my already packed days researching in forums how I should get something done on my Macbook. I need to be very productive through my day, with as little IT things to worry about as possible.

Given this, I am seriously considering not opting for a Mac. Besides, I do have my personal Macbook at home.

But the 'designer' and Apple fan in me isn't letting me take that decision. I cannot bring myself to say "NO" to a Mac. Im torn!!

When social media surprised me

Last week, I was researching about how the world of groceries work from a supply chain perspective (demand, supply, planning etc).

While I am amongst the early adopters of social media, it did surprise me to see hundreds of consumers sharing reviews about items as mundane as cookies and washing items.
Many grocery items have their own Facebook pages. The facebook page of Oreo cookies has 11 million fans.

I never realized that even everyday products like groceries were affected by social media.
Insightful.

Collaboration

In countries like those where I come from, citizens hesitate to reach out to the Police and many other governmental support because more often than not, it means putting your finger into an ant hill.

• Many of us do not trust them
• We do not trust the system to be supportive
• We know it is a lot of hassle - time consuming/ laborious paper work  etc etc

I draw parallels of this scenario with that of 'collaboration' in large corporations. There is a lot of buzz around working in 'start up mode' inside a large corporation because people are beginning to realize that the sheer size/logistics slows us down and we cannot afford to.

Breaking silos is not an easy task. Some wish to not open the can of worms and accept redundancy to be more peaceful .
Some others, do take the on the huge task of breaking silos - to collaborate - to reach out and avoid redundancy. This is not for the faint hearted. Some give up, a few continue on.

Such a task has nothing to do with the ultimate success/failure of a project/product. However, more often than not, it is the success/failure of the project/product that gets recognized or rewarded. Reducing the challenge some people take to break silos and reduce redundancy to nothing.

Irrespective of project/product outcomes - why is 'collaboration' not recognized/rewarded enough even though everyone recognizes this as such an important part of working efficiently?

How do you define 'good design?'

I have been asked this question during many interviews throughout my career.
Each time I feel, my answer to this question will make/break my chances of getting that job.

I never had a straight forward answer because I believe there is none. There is no all encompassing definition of good design. It has so many different perspectives to it.

Inherently, I knew the principles, but I could never do an elevator pitch on this.
Thanks to a colleague, I came across this documentation of 'Good Design' principles by Dieter Rams.

• Good design is innovative
• Good design makes a product useful
• Good design is aesthetic
• Good design makes a product understandable
• Good design is unobtrusive
• Good design is honest
• Good design is long lasting
• Good design is thorough, down to the last detail
• Good design is environment friendly
• Good design is as little design as possible

I whole-heartedly agree to these principles. My favourite two are:

• Good design is as little design as possible
• Good design is Honest

I now have an excellent reference point to answer this very cliche' question in future interviews :)

Opening up

A friend of mine recently opted to buy the Samsung Galaxy instead of the Apple iPhone - for various reasons.

Samsung Galaxy is not the same as the Apple iPhone, however, it is really quite good by itself. It runs on the Google Android platform. Samsung among many others is part of the Open Handset Alliance.
The alliance has mobile operators; handset manufacturers; software companies; semiconductor companies...

It made me wonder that over the years, the consumer space has become to open and collaborative; companies are partnering with each other in ways that make sense to come up with meaningful products and services to consumers in a very desirable manner.

In my eyes such alliances reflect the realization that one company cannot do everything on it's own.

On the other hand, in the enterprise world, I still see companies trying to build a lot of things internally - not opening up to team up with expert players and collaboratively working on shipping meaningful products and services to customers in a desirable way.

There is so much innovation happening in the consumer space, so fast, the enterprise world is merely catching up. I feel, the least we can do is partner with some of the players in the consumer space. I have heard the usual arguments of security, complexity bla bla often as reasons why the enterprise world does not work on this model. I am sure these are aspects that are very important in any kind of application.
I don't believe the enterprise is unique.

Just because a user is using an enterprise software, does he/she have to endure bad design?