Design

Design and customer experience can mean many things. In my line of work, it plays out in technology designs for user interfaces. The application of design and customer experience is focused on the development of products and systems.

The context and application of design and customer experience in Melbourne Alternate Designs is at a much larger and grander scale. However, no matter the size, the principles hold true.

Design and customer experience can be subjective. However, consensus can be reached to define on an agreed standard or quality expected from design. When it comes to buildings and infrastructure, impact on the general public and main users of the building/infrastructure must be considered.

While there are subjective definitions and measures on design quality and standards, for the purposes of my blog, good design is invariable associated with usability. Usability focuses on what makes an experience user-friendly:

1. Efficient to use — minimal use of time and effort to achieve objectives
2. Easier to learn — simple observation leads to awareness by others and uptake
3. More satisfying to use/experience — this can be measured nowadays with metrics like a Net Promoter Score and other marketing/engineering-based metrics.

Typically, politics and economics will constrain and influence the direction of designs. Further, the triple constraint that projects face — time, scope, cost — will mean that compromises are reached and more often than not, it’s the design and customer experience aspects of a project which are traded off to achieve and satisfy the needs of the triple constraint.

The thoughts that I blog here will often operate on the basis that the triple constraint, indeed any constraint, is irrelevant. My work is ultimately idealist in nature, a work of fiction, and my thoughts have always worked from the premise of what would the ideal state/solution be?