Dear Pavan:

Dear Pavan:

I hope my answers are ok.

Answers to the questions. 

All my answers will come from real-life projects that I've done.

These answers can obviously be improved and elaborated in conversation

1. How do you define a good design in the context of your work?

I did a project with my Veterinarian. He's an ethical vet. He supports neutering dogs to cut down on the numbers of strays. He supports finding nice homes for animals in need of such homes. He supports many other humane practices. 

He's quite pro-active in educating clients about the philosophy of his clinic. It's a 'One-Health' philosophy which simply means that animals and their human families should live harmoniously within their biosphere.

This is something like the best practice in the ecological model of health. He asked my small company Vessel Health Communication to help him meet his goals. We thought that to have a good or successful design - and this goes for all our projects - we should establish a good relationship with the client, that's the first thing. The second thing is that the interventions should succeed in changing his clients' behaviour. We did this by using a very simple intervention. We created an entire brand identity using the image of a cute mongrel pup. It immediately represented his clinic's commitment to rescuing animals, about his clinic not preferring pure-bred animals over mixed breed, about the economics of animal care, about questioning animal ownership as a standard of social prestige and social stratification. It also helped clients of modest incomes believe that their animals were affordable.  Also kids love this mongrel pup. These are just a few things that would have made a good design.

2. Behavioural issues you face in helping others embrace design and creative ways of breaking barriers.

There are many behavioural issues but the main thing is how overconfident people are when they default to the most basic framing. You know the often repeated saying that a customer does not need a drill, they need a hole. But drills are big, they're heavy, they make noise, they might be expensive, they pick up space; you can't miss them. And it's the first thing that comes to mind. Holes have none of these qualities and are not at all showy. People believe they'll succeed if they do just like the guy next door did, and they're overconfident in that belief.

I don't know if the question means how I find creative ways to break barriers, or how I help people find creative ways to break barriers, so I'll answer both. I have a real simple old-fashioned way of breaking barriers. I read a lot. I have great respect for people who write and sustain a great degree of critical thinking throughout the work. I respect that stamina. I respect the work. I tell myself I too can do that. That's how I break barriers. For other's I try to find out what they're drawn to. Some people love beautiful objects. It's a bit like Donald Norman's view of emotional design. People are greatly attracted to beauty so you present a new experience in the most beautiful irresistible way and you can hook them. Some people like usability. I'm like that. If things are easy and pleasurable to use, I fall in love with them then I start seeing them as more beautiful than they really are. This happens to me a lot with knives and fonts. I find myself loving a character more than ever if it fits well. I have in the past fallen in love with lower-case 'gs', and I once remember loving an uppercase 'Q'

3. Three point agenda for an audience to practice design thinking meaningfully.

I love design history. Point one is to take the audience through a simple, and easy to understand history lesson, of how the object, environment, service, programme, came to be alive. 

Point two is to read Donald Norman

Point three is to practice making [simple] rich pictures, then to use the rich pictures to see how things are connected; to get a 'big-picture' view, or system view of the issue. This is an easy way for people to get an idea of what's in the system, and what's out of the system. And with the system view try to find the bottlenecks or friction points. And then use whatever they have to remove the bottlenecks. They should know that this might not be a solution, but a set of improvements. It's always evolving.

Regards