The key to great design outcomes is not colour, typography or layout. It isn’t in design thinking either, although those things have a part to play. Questions are the answer.
What?
When?
Questions are important to kick off the design process but it is also important to keep asking questions throughout. User research can yield valuable insights at various stages of the process, including at the end.
What are the questions?
The questions depend on the project, but Studio Kidd generally work on branding projects or digital product design, but also comms campaigns. For brands and digital product design, we have some well-tested workshop routines that allow us to extract information from the experts—the product owners, or company bosses.
Any questions will give you information that’s useful, even if the answer is ‘i don’t know’. Often customers can’t tell designers the answers they seek–if they knew all the answers they may not even need a designer. So designers become expert at asking the right questions around the subject in order to work out the answers.
Our approach involves:
1. Set-aside assumptions
2. Listen
3. Asking open ended questions
4. Listen
5. Allowing space for thought
6. Listen
7. Focusing on questions that can’t be googled
8. Listen
9. Process and write-up
How does it work?
Well, sometimes a couple of questions to a familiar, existing client is all that’s required, but if deeper knowledge is of benefit, then we run workshops that help to define those questions and gather answers to complex problems, those can then be processed and articulated back to the clients in the form of a strategy or brief.
Really?
Yes, questions are the lynchpin of our business. We constantly question ourselves and our proposed solutions until we filter down to the best outputs. Design is all about opening up all the possibilities and making decisions until you reach the best solution.
Interested?
Well, you can always ask us more.
call: 07989 185588
email: bryan@studiokidd.com
Twitter: @kiddstudio