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About Traditional Design
To many people the term design connotes specific planned and arranged elements that comprise the appearance of, for example, a building, an automobile, a wedding gown, an appliance, and a myriad of other every day items. We often hear statements like “Her Fall fashion designs are entirely new and unique”, and “… the design lines in this car are daring and shout ‘speed’ in every curve and angle”. Industrial Design and Corporate Design have long been elements of corporate culture, and widespread adoption of the Internet has increased the focus on Graphic Design and Web Design. The value that can be realized by a fashionable and trendy appearance is well known and is often featured in design awards. For example, the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award includes categories for architecture, communication, fashion, product, landscape, and interior design.
Wining a design award can be a tremendously important achievement, but we all know of products that won design awards yet were lackluster or even failures in the marketplace. The criteria for traditional design awards represent a few dimensions of a many-dimensional problem. What is needed is a thorough understanding of how people will assess a product or service in relation to their association with it. When applied throughout the development process, this level of understanding can lead to long-term customer loyalty. It also describes the value sought by the product developers, which gives them incentives to continue providing and improving the product over time. Thoughtful attention to these additional dimensions of design can catapult a product to leadership in its marketplace and ensure long lasting success.
How Extended Design Creates Added Value
Design and development processes must be adjusted to address these additional dimensions in measurable ways. The measures can be used to constantly validate that a product is on target to delivering value to each and every stakeholder.
The approach we describe achieves value for everyone involved by focusing on several key aspects:
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Stakeholders - stakeholders are people having a vested
interest in a product or service. Their role is characterized as:
supplier, developer, customer, and/or user. Each role seeks to
achieve some value through their association with the product or service.
That value is described in terms of goals, which are further defined in
terms of measurable criteria for achievement. Goals are achieved
through processes, which may also be called activities or tasks.
Business processes and development activities are examples. Through a
thorough understanding of stakeholders' goals and especially their criteria
for success (goal measures), we can ensure that the processes involved are
aligned to achieving the goals.
- Models - a rigorous and methodical approach is necessary to ensure stakeholders' goals are achieved. Methodical approaches are used to identify stakeholders' goals and measures, and rigorous documentation is achieved through the use of models. Models capture the crucial information describing stakeholders and their relationships, and they enable analysis to guide critical decisions and tradeoffs. Models are used to describe processes and assess how well they achieve desired goals. They are also used to organize concepts and relationships that must be understood by customers and users so that early validation of the design can be carried out.
The approach we describe has evolved over more than a decade of usage and it has resulted in numerous successes. We have seen the approach adopted to varying degrees with proportional degrees of success. It is not an all-or-nothing approach. The key concepts described in this section are the most important elements. But they need not be universally applied across all aspects of a development project. Significant success can be achieved by conscientious application to the most important aspects. Early analysis of the stakeholders and their goals provides the insight necessary to identify aspects to focus on.
To further understand our approach, first explore the section on Stakeholders to understand the elements of information that are crucial to driving a successful project. Then explore the section on Models to understand how rigorous definitions and documentation are necessary to ensure that the entire development team have a common understanding of what needs to be done.