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DESIGN THINKING

&

COMMUNICATION

DESIGN

FOR INNOVATION

Problem Finding and Problem Solving

Can a product benefit our environment and society in a positive way, and provide profit at the same time? With our concepts and communication design we want to meet the challenges we face today and contribute to our clients and the environment.

Cutting Edge Concepts and Design

DESIGN-FACTORY.NL creates within innovation projects, concepts and design in the field of corporate identity, branding, graphic design, web and interactive design, photography, events, film, new media and art.

Outside the Box

Meeting our customers demands, require out-of-the-box thinking and an integrated approach, so that the concepts stay distinctive, inspirational and credible and are allowed to mature.

Effective, Different and Innovative

DESIGN-FACTORY.NL deliberately chooses to remain small. In this way, we can continue to think independently and work with a team of specialists who love to take on complex challenges.

Strategic Design, Talks, Networking

Since 1993 DESIGN-FACTORY worked for various companies and institutions in different sectors, both in the Netherlands and abroad. We show our case studies across diverse industries upon request.

CONTACT

DESIGN-FACTORY.NL
Rose-Marie Kaanen
Maliebaan 35
NL-5944BK ARCEN
+31 (0)77 473 90 62
+31 (0)6 532 92 387

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Rose-Marie Kaanen:

 

"In a rapidly changing society in which innovation and technical development are crucial, good communication to foster links between engineers, the public, the media, politicians and businesses is extremely important. It is the catalyst that converts a good idea into a successful one.

By using Design-Thinking as a tool we help to improve these processes, in order to create successful innovations for a sustainable world."

<p>&nbsp;</p> <p><br> <span class="style96">No frames? No Problem!</span></p> <p class="style96">Take a look at this no-frames version.</p> <p><br> <strong>Design-Factory</strong> is een strategisch <strong>design- en communicatiebureau</strong> in zuid Nederland in de <strong>eurregio Rijn-Maas</strong>. Ons kantoor is gevestigd in Venlo, tussen Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Maastricht en Duesseldorf. Bij design-factory werken hoog opgeleide professionals met gevoel voor innovatie en vernieuwing. Eén van Nederlands eerste bureaus die zich bezig hield met <strong>Design-thinking en E-media</strong>. </p> <p>Design-factory heeft een strategische werkwijze. Design-factor creërt <strong>merkidentiteiten</strong> en <strong>campagnes</strong> door verbeeldingskracht te gebruiken. In onze visie gaat het bij <strong>communicatie </strong>en <strong>design</strong> om méér dan alleen de vorm. <strong>Ontwerpen</strong> en <strong>design</strong> helpen boodschappen overbrengen en maakt de ambities zichtbaar, helpt interactie bewerkstelligen en informatie toegankelijk te maken. Dat vraagt om een <strong>geïntegreerde aanpak</strong> die de <strong>communicatiekanalen</strong> overstijgt. Design-factor gelooft in authenticiteit en consistentie. Communicatie of een merk moet niet alleen herkenbaar en inspirerend zijn, maar ook geloofwaardig. Het moet door de organisatie worden waargemaakt en uitgedragen. Pas dan kan een coomunicatiestrategie of merk echt onderscheidend zijn. Het moet beleefd kunnen worden.<br /> </p> <p>Wij schrijven voor klanten <strong>communicatieplannen</strong>, geven samen met andere professionals heldere <strong>marketingadviesen</strong> en zijn sterk in <strong>community marketing</strong>. Wij zijn sterk in het vertalen van <strong>strategische marketing conceten</strong> naar <strong>ontwerp</strong> en <strong>design</strong>. Wij werken op de volgende gebieden: van <strong>strategisch marketing- en communicatieadvies</strong> tot <strong>visuele uit- voering</strong>. Van <strong>creatief concept</strong> tot en met <strong>mediaplanning</strong>. Op basis van het <strong>communicatieadvies</strong>, creeeren wij sterke <strong>advertentie campagnes</strong>, bouwen wij Uw <strong>website</strong>, <strong>designen</strong> wij Uw <strong>brochure</strong>, <strong>ontwerpen </strong>Uw <strong>jaarverslag</strong>, <strong>logo</strong> of <strong>complete huisstijl</strong>. </p> <p>Wij verzorgen <strong>reclame drukwerk</strong> en geven advies over <strong>grafische vormgeving</strong> <strong>logo's</strong> <strong>huisstijlen</strong> <strong>package design</strong> , de uitstaling van uw <strong>verpakking </strong>en andere <strong>grafische uitingen</strong>, zoals <strong>posters</strong>, <strong>brochures</strong>, <strong>bedrijfsdocumentatie</strong>, <strong>briefpapier</strong>, <strong>brochure</strong>, <strong>affiche</strong> of <strong>affiches</strong> en <strong>banner</strong> of <strong>banners</strong>. </p> <p>Wij vertalen Uw <strong>boodschap</strong> en creeëren een <strong>helder beeld</strong> naar Uw klanten en <strong>doelgroep</strong>. <strong>Design Factory</strong> denkt mee over het succes van Uw <strong>onderneming</strong>. Wij werken al jarenlang voor <strong>gerenommeerde bedrijven</strong>, zowel groot als klein en in samenwerking met andere <strong>professionals</strong>, zoals collega <strong>fotografen</strong>, <strong>designers</strong>, <strong>vormgevers</strong>, en <strong>ontwikkelaars</strong>. Naast samenwerking tussen <strong>branchegenoten</strong> vindt ook samenwerking tussen <strong>overheid</strong>, <strong>bedrijven</strong> en <strong>onderzoeksinstituten</strong> plaats. <strong>Neem contact met ons op</strong>, <strong>bel ons</strong>, zodat we ook U en Uw doelgroep kunnen bereiken en een <strong>winnende strategie</strong> kunnen uitstippelen. We hebben bewezen dat we een <strong>onderscheidende boodschap</strong> kunnen creëeren. <strong>Design-Factory</strong> heeft klanten door heel <strong>Nederland</strong> bijvoorbeeld in <strong>Eindhoven</strong>, <strong>Venray</strong> en <strong>Venlo</strong>. Wij werken ook in <strong>Duitsland</strong>, voor de <strong>Duitse markt</strong> in bijvoorbeeld, <strong>Dusseldorf</strong>, <strong>Moers</strong>, <strong>Krefeld</strong>. We werken <strong>cross-border</strong>, soms in samenwerking met <strong>duitse partners</strong>.</p> <p><br> <strong>Design Factory </strong>is gestart door <strong>Rose-Marie Kaanen</strong>. In <strong>Tilburg</strong> studeerde zij <strong>ruimtelijk ontwerp</strong>, <strong>design</strong> en <strong>fotografie</strong>. Als autonoom <strong>fotograaf</strong> en autonoom <strong>vormgever</strong> kreeg ze prijzen en stipendia en exposeerde haar werk in diverse gerenommeerde <strong>galerieën</strong> en <strong>musea</strong>. </p> <p>Daarnaast werkt <strong>Rose-Marie Kaanen </strong>als <strong>communicatieadviseur</strong> voor <strong>Design-factory</strong>. Al jaren maakt <strong>Design Factory</strong> (<strong>fullservice dutch design and advertsising agency</strong>, <strong>the Netherlands</strong> ) <strong>advertenties</strong> en <strong>adverteren</strong> we, geven onze klanten advies over het <strong>communicatie beleid</strong>. We zijn dus een <strong>adviesbureau</strong> en <strong>consultancy bureau</strong>, maar zorgen ook voor het trajec daarna. In het <strong>uitvoeringstraject</strong> hebben we kennis van <strong>designen</strong>, <strong>dtp</strong>. <strong>Ontwerpen</strong> <strong>twee en drie diemensionaal</strong>. </p> <p> We verzorgen een complete <strong>bedrijfspresentatie</strong>. We ontwerpen ook <strong>catalogi</strong>, verzorgen uw <strong>communicatie plannen</strong> en <strong>beursstands</strong>. We zijn een bureau voor <strong>business to business</strong>, maar ook voor <strong>Business - to - consumers</strong>. We verzorgen <strong>creatieve concepten</strong>, <strong>corporate identity</strong>, uw <strong>huisstijl </strong>en <strong>huisstijlen</strong>, uw <strong>identity</strong>, uw <strong>image</strong> en <strong>imago</strong>. Ook op de niewe terreinen en in de ' <strong>new-media</strong> ' zijn wij thuis. Bijvoorbeeld, <strong>digitaal drukwerk</strong>, <strong>e-business</strong>, <strong>e-commerce</strong>, <strong>e-mail</strong>, <strong>e-business</strong>, <strong>e-commerce</strong>, <strong>cross media concepten.</strong>We bouwen uw <strong>website</strong>, verzorgen uw <strong>website-beheer</strong>, ontwikkelen <strong>websites</strong> voor grote en kleine klanten en denken na over <strong>webvertising</strong> en <strong>ranking</strong>. Wij creeeren <strong>maatwerk</strong>, op basis van een goed doordacht plan wordt een schets gemaakt en die wordt klantspecifek uitgewerkt in een of-line en in een on-line. Wij zijn hiermee <strong>effectief</strong>, <strong>innovatief</strong> en hebben veel <strong>know-how</strong>, knowledge die we <strong>strategisch</strong> en<strong> effectief </strong>kunnen inzetten. Wij gaan met de problemen van onze klanten <strong>creatief</strong> en <strong>vakbekwaam</strong> om. <strong>Creativiteit</strong> staat bij ons hoog in het vaandel. Veel problemen zijn met een <strong>creatieve aanpak</strong> goed, mooi en <strong>effectief</strong> <strong>op te lossen</strong>. In <strong>1994</strong> verzorgden wij onder de naam <strong>rose-marie kaanen communicatie</strong> ons eerste <strong>multimediaproject</strong> voor een gerenomeerde<strong> Nederlandse beursgenoteerde multinational</strong>. In <strong>1995</strong> volgt het <strong>design</strong> voor een <strong>interactieve game</strong> voor <strong>nederland</strong>, <strong>Duitsland</strong> en <strong>Italie</strong>. Wij maakten <strong>concepten</strong> voor <strong>grote evenementen</strong> en<strong> productlanceringen</strong>, bijvoorbeld in het <strong>Evoluon</strong> in <strong>Eindhoven</strong> en het <strong>beursgebouw</strong> in <strong>Eindhoven</strong>. Wij verzorgennden de <strong>productlancering</strong> van een nieuwe <strong>tecnologisch innovatieve</strong> verwarmingsketel. Wij <strong>spreken diverse talen</strong> vloeiend, <strong>Nederlands, Duits, Engels en Frans</strong>. De <strong>ontwerprs van Design-Factory </strong>voelen zich daarom een <strong>internationaal opererende organisatie</strong> en <strong>design studio</strong> die graag werkt voor <strong>professionele organisaties </strong>en klanten in <strong>binnen en buitenland</strong>. <strong>Internationale trends</strong> en <strong>nieuwe ontwikkelingen</strong> worden nauwlettend in de gaten gehouden. Daarom kunnen wij <strong>nieuwe media</strong> en <strong>technologie </strong>adequaat inzetten <strong>ter ondersteuning </strong>van de <strong>corporate identity</strong> of het <strong>creeëren van een brand</strong>. <strong>Design-Factory</strong>; gemeente <strong>Venlo</strong> ( <strong>Limburg</strong> )is gevestigd in <strong>Arcen</strong> vlakbij <strong>Duitsland </strong>met goede <strong>contacten </strong>en<strong> relaties in de duitse markt</strong>.Wij werken ook met <strong>duitse reclamebureaus</strong> en <strong>reclamebureaus in Duitsland</strong> samen. <span class="style103"><strong>Gute Kommunikation treibt die Wirtschaft</strong>. </span>Die Wahl der „richtigen” Agentur ist einer der zentralen Faktoren, der über Erfolg einer Kommunikationsmaßnahme entscheidet.<strong>Design-factory</strong> verdeutlicht welche Schritte den <strong>Erfolg </strong>der Marketing-Kommunikation sicherstellen. <strong>Werbung in der Offensive. </strong>Warum sollte ein Kunde mit einer <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong> oder <strong>designagentur</strong> zusammenarbeiten?</p> <p><span class="style103"><strong>BERATUNG, PLANUNG</strong>, <strong>DESIGN</strong></span><br /> Der Kunde braucht eine <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong> gegen die Betriebsblindheit, wegen der <strong>Beratung</strong>, der <strong>Planung</strong> und der <strong>Kommunikationsstrategie</strong>. <span class="style103"><strong>Dienstleistungen in Text</strong> und <strong>Gestaltung</strong>, <strong>Produktion</strong> und <strong>Media</strong></span>. Der Kunde braucht eine <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong> wegen <strong>Dienstleistungen </strong>in <strong>Text</strong> und <strong>Gestaltung</strong>, <strong>Produktion</strong> und <strong>Media</strong>. Eine <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong>, die Kunden aus den verschiedensten Branchen und mit den unterschiedlichsten Produkten betreut, ist auch in der <strong>Kreation </strong>vielseitiger als es eigene Gestalter in der <strong>Werbeabteilung</strong> sein könnten. <span class="style103"><strong>Flexibilität</strong>, <strong>variable Kosten</strong></span>. Der Kunde braucht eine <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong>, wenn/weil er die eigene<strong> Werbeabteilung</strong> nicht über das ganze Jahr auslasten kann, weil die <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong> <strong>flexibler</strong> ist, weil eine <strong>Kommunikationsagentur </strong>für ihn variable Kosten anstatt fixe (Personal-)Kosten bedeutet. Hohe Professionalität im Werbewettbewerb. Der Kunde braucht eine <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong>, weil auch seine Mitbewerber mit einer <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong> zusammenarbeiten, weil der Wettbewerb, auch der Werbewettbewerb, mit höherer <strong>Professionalität </strong>ausgetragen wird. <span class="style101">Absicherung der Werbeinvestionen. </span>Mann braucht eine <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong>, weil die Werbeaufwendungen immer höher werden und die Zusammenarbeit mit der <strong>Kommunikationsagentur </strong>Absicherung der Werbeinvestitionen bedeutet. Höhere Planungssicherheit, professioneller Einsatz, die <strong>Kommunikationsagentur</strong> muss nicht mehr das Rad neu erfinden, sondern tritt mit bewährten und erprobten Mitarbeitern und Methoden an.<span class="style101"> Agentur als Sparringspartner</span>. Die Beratung durch eine Kommunikationsagentur gilt nicht nur der Werbung, nicht einmal nur dem Kommunikations-Mix mit Werbung, Public Relations, Verkaufsförderung, Events etc., sondern bedeutet Mitdenken, auch bei Produkten, Neuentwicklungen, bei Vertriebswegen, bedeutet Konkurrenzkenntnisse, Marktbeobachtung: Kommunikationsagentur bedeutet Sparringspartner. </p> <p><strong>DESIGN-FACTORY </strong>helps company's to create <span class="style98">Blue Ocean Strategys</span>. Blue Ocean Strategy covers both strategy formulation and strategy execution.We think that leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by creating “<span class="style98">blue oceans</span>” of uncontested market space ripe for growth. Such strategic moves – termed “value innovation” – create powerful leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, rendering rivalry obsolete and unleashing new demand. </p> <p><strong>DESIGN-FACTORY </strong>hoopt een goed beeld te hebben gegeven voor de internetgebruikers die nog oudere browserversie's gebruiken.Natuurlijk is het mooier om onze site met een niewe browser te bekijken. Wij richten ons in ons ontwerp ook vooral hierop. Deze pagina is vooral bedoeld als achtergrond informatie.</p> <p>Communication Design for Innovation</p> <p>Successful innovation is impossible without communication. In a rapidly changing society in which technical development is key, an engineer is expected to have more to offer than substantive knowledge and technical skills alone. Good communication to foster links between engineers, the public, the media, politicians and businesses is extremely important. Society challenges us to consider the social relevance of technology and science and requires us to devise and implement suitable communication strategies for innovative developments. Communication is crucial; it is the catalyst that converts a good idea into a successful one. Knowledge of communication is therefore an essential addition to science. Clear and targeted communication enhances the quality of science and technology.</p> <p><strong><span class="style98">BLUE OCEAN STRATEGYG</span></strong></p> <p><strong><span class="style98">New Pathways to Integrated Design SuccessY</span></strong></p> <p><strong>Your New Design Process Is Not Enough—Hire Design Thinkers! </strong></p> <p>Executing design successfully in a multinational company is not just about designing the best product. The best product is, of course, a start- ing point for success in the marketplace, and meanwhile the result of a wellbalanced series of processes. But before and after its creation, the product must be surrounded by a pervasive design culture, which will enable the development of the right product to begin with.It will also improve the likelihood of the product’s success in the market afterward. In order to achieve this happy condition in corporate cultures, design must find a way to create a dialogue with every company function, spreading vertically and horizontally in the organizational structure and adapting its language in order to be understood and leveraged by various internal target audiences. Infusing design successfully in a corporation is not about an isolated team of super-designers. Designing successfully in a corporation is about the way the entire company thinks. That’s why the role of designers in corporations that are not designdriven is extremely important and goes far beyond product development. There are many variables to consider and manage when infusing design into a complex organization. In this article, we will focus on one of these variable one of the most important and probably one of the most misunderstood design people. </p> <p>We will briefly talk about the evolu- tion of the role of design and designers, as well as of design thinkers in my compan design-factor investigating the positioning and interpretation of their role in the innovation processes of a successful, innovative, multinational, technology-driven corporation. I was hired by design-factory in late 2002 to develop a design center for the consumer and office business division. The company decided to plant the first seed of this new approach to product development in Milan, Italy, considering this city as the ideal “piazza” in which to connect our Minnesota headquarters with a network of world-renowned design leaders. Today, we have design teams in the US, Italy, and China, and design is becoming an integral part of each new INNOVATION. It’s certainly possible to dive deeper into defining the input and output phases of a typical innovation process. Many books have been written and many words spoken about the process of innovation. Industries and even companies have their own nomenclature of abbreviations, acronyms, and people associated with that process. At design-factory, our NPI (new product introduction) process focuses on phase/gate reviews: Idea, Concept, Feasibility, Development, Scale-up, Launch, and Post-Launch, and our information flow starts with a definition of the opportunity and proceeds through research, analysis, ideation, prototyping, selection, implementation, launching, monitoring, and learning. Talk to any corporation or firm and you find different definitions, but most have similar processes defining what the inputs and outputs will be for each phase. This is true whether a company is driven by technology or by design. Companies often describe their process in similar ways, even though people in the organization may define their own roles very differently. For example, history defines design-factory as an in- novative company driven by technology. Yet the kinds of ethnography research belonging to design-factory’s early ideation phase, which many design firms and design-driven companies highlight as typicalof a design approach, has always been part of design-factory’s innovation DNA. </p> <p>That’s been the case from the early 1900s to the mid ’70s and beyond. So what makes one corporation more creative, more successful, and more effective than the next in its approach to design? The filters: A key variable in a design-driven innovation process A process is a tool. It is like a pen or a paintbrush. Now imagine placing that pen or that brush in the hands of your grandpa (assuming that you are not the nephew of Picasso!). And then give the same tools to Michelangelo or Andy Warhol. Of course you need to have the right tools, or else you are not in the best position to use your skills at their full potential. But still, the difference is one of people. And notice that I say people, not know-how. The difference between your grandpa and Michelangelo or Warhol is not so much one of technical ability as it is about culture and mindset. In the case of corporations, the culture and the mindset belong first of all to the company, but companies are, of course, made of people. People from the CEO on down are living that culture dailytransforming it into a reality, evolving it, and steering it with various driving forces, sometimes from the bottom up and sometimes from the top down. Therefore, a key variable that makes an innovation process designdriven is the company culture and, on a different scale, the mindset of the people who are driving or simply participating ithat process. The kind of information these people identify as relevant, the way they translate them into solutions, the ways in which they make decisions (in the ideation phase, as well as in the execution), the way they select and prioritize ideas, products, and strategies, the kinds of risks they are willing to takeall these can be considered the filters that decide what gets kept in the input and output phases. The design filters are the ones that make you select input and outputs that are relevant to your users as potential enablers of holistic fulfilling experiences. It’s kind of easy to be design-sensitive in the initial phases of product development. But what about when it is the moment to make a decision that is going to shape the future of your business? In that scenario, what’s the designer’s role? Indeed, what makes a process more design-driven than technology-driven? Is a design process all about designers? Or is the role of other functions fundamental in making a company design-driven? The great product designer, and product designers just on the business card Let’s start by clarifying first of all the definition of the role and profile of a designer. A designer is a professional who has been trained to design new solutions, products, or services for defined end users, to be manufactured in series, with industrial processes. A designer is able to balance with great elegance the aesthetic and functional aspects of a product or service, enabling a new, fulfilling experience for the user. I have met some designers that possess an extraordinary taste and an unnatural ability to understand with their gut, even before their minds, what people wan but their approach is not at all processdriven, and that can be a big problem. They are wonderful to work with, but within the confines of a corporation their visceral approach is often difficult to embrace, especially within the boundaries of a standard, predictable process. To be a designer, a good designer, you don’t need to be visceral. That’s just one face of the role. It’s possible to have a more mindful, processdriven approach to product development. That’s another face of design. Whatever approach you employ, the mindset to search for, respect, and celebrate is the one that allows space for the magic sparkle of intuition. I have also witnessed many designers who are designers just on their business cards. They don’t really own the spontaneous ability to imagine and execute meaningful, beautiful, practical solutions. I have seen designers who hide behind the curtain of complex processes and methodologie more likely to waste precious resources than to deliver results. I am greatly in favor of process-driven design—as long as it is referred to as a framework for efficiency and productivity, in which design can freely manifest its creative power. Here is a useful reminder for corporations that are not design-driven: It is not enough to hire a desiner to get the right design solution. You need to engage the right designer. And eventually you need designers to identify and manage the right designer. In order to define the role of people in general, and of designers specifically, in the kind of design process that leads to innovation, let’s start by describing the two opposite, extreme definitions of the design role—and this is already, by the way, a typical design approach to problem solving—so that we can identify the boundaries within which we can search for the correct one. First potential misunderstanding: Design for nondesigners Designer as cake decorator! One of the major problems in non-design-driven corporations is the social misunderstanding of the meaning of design and the role of the designer. Historically, design has been strongly associated with styling, and it becomes a variable of secondary importance in many R&D contexts when confined within the boundaries of the “decoration phase” of the product development process. Design is not about beautification, and designers are not cake decorators to be called in at the end of the product development process, when there is still some time and money left to waste, in order to make that ugly but functional product prettier. When I began the design journey at design-factorydesign-factory several years ago, I focused my time on identifying sponsors within marketing and R&D who could help set up a strategy that could clarify this misunderstanding. Dialectical. Design thinkers are dialectical by definition. They smoothly jump from one field to the other, moving from marketing to technology, from anthropology to manufacturing, from communication to research, and this ambiguity is part of their very essence. They are fully comfortable with the conflict between rationality and soul, between functionality and style, between process and intuition. In fact, they thrive in the middle of that storm! That’s their nature. When searching for new solutions, design thinkers surf comfortably on the fine edge between the feasible and the unfeasible—because that’s the only geography where innovation likes to lie down and rest. </p> <p>That’s where they need to hunt. Consequently, they are often singled out by nondesign thinkers as individuals unable to define concrete and feasible solutions. The truth is that to craft real innovation, you need to challenge what’s possible; you need to make proposals more than you need to find solutions; you need to try and try and try until you get to the superior concept. The design process is like a scientific process. The only difference is that in the latter, propos- als of potential solutions are called experiments in the former, in a nondesign-driven culture, they are simply pointed out as mistakes. Design thinkers are therefore tolerant of mistakes. The pathway to success is rich with them. Rather than fighting them, design thinkers manage them and eventually learn from them. Any project that doesn’t incur some mistakes risks being sterile. Elegant. Design thinkers are elegant in the process, as well as in the solution. Elegance, in our interpretation, is obviously not just about aesthetics or style. It’s at least that; in fact it’s much more! In terms of solutions, elegance refers to the magic balance among the minimum number of elements that enable a product or a service to be the most likely to deliver the highest level of experience expected by the target audience. No more, no less. Where the process is concerned, elegance describes the simplest path to solve even the most complex problem. In general, design elegance is about what I like to call relative simplicity—a concept of simplicity that is always in relationship with the context and the end user, moderated by company culture and brand equity. Some users, for instance, require several layers of complexity in their interactions with the interface of a cell phone or a camera, as that’s what satisfies their need for feeling like an expert in the use of that product—or perhaps that’s the only way to keep them engaged over time, without boring them after the first use. Consider the function of some video games, which are designed with the goal in mind of challenging the player for several days at a time. For such products, the most elegant solution is very complicated, because that is what the consumer expects and indeed welcomes. In short, elegance is not about being minimal; it is about developing a solution for a need or a want of a well-identified user in a specified context in the simplest way. Polyglot and storyteller. Design thinkers are polyglot—they are able to speak different languages, moving smoothly from marketing to science, from design to anthropology, in order to deliver messages that are understandable and relevant to various target audiences inside and outside the organization. Design thinkers are storytellers, able to translate those messages into copelling scenarios and visions, aiming to engage and inspire those targets. Emotional and Rational. Design thinkers, in quest of holistic solutions to articulated and unarticulated human needs and wants, recognize the importance of the emotional variables during any selection process when they scan information in the input phase, as well as when they choose which solution to develop in the output phase. As such, for them emotional filters assume the same weight as do functional ones. The balanced mix of emotional and functional considerations aiming to craft solutions that can enable holistic, fulfilling experiences is what we define as design filters. Intuitive. Design thinkers do not run away from the magic of intuition. They recognize the role that the mysterious sparkle of a visceral idea, not deducible or evident, can play in the process of innovation. They nurture perception; they celebrate immediate cognition; they preserve the value of instinct. Intuition doesn’t find an easy life in corporate cultures driven by data and processes. Design thinkers fight hard to defend its value; they eventually control it inside the boundaries of processes that can protect it and give it the opportunity of being translated into ideas to be developed and executed. The designer who is a design thinker The designer who is also a design thinker is a very interesting profile. As a designer, he can visualize and prototype the solutions he imagines as a design thinker, enabling those solutions to be shared, understood, tested, and challenged by any function inside and outside the organization (Figure 2). He is a professional able to craft those visions firsthand or by directing a team of people, and to manage them within the turbulence of the product development process. He is able to translate those visions into real products and services for the society and he owns the right skills and know-how to deeply understand (as well as question) the nature of those products and services, down to the slightest detail. </p> <p>The designer/design thinker can manage the design-driven innovation process while working with other functions in the company in order to deliver the best output to the market. Although it’s possible for nondesigners to be classic design thinkers (see below), still there is a high probability of finding designers who are design thinkers—for two reasons. </p> <p>First, the design thinker is naturally attracted to the designer job, as it is one of the most synthetic, dialectical, elegant, passionate professions you can find. Second, and most important, designers are trained, consciously or unconsciously, depending on the school’s methodologies, to design thinking. That’s what you learn at university; it’s the expectation in any design firm or design-driven company. Designers grow by applying design thinking to their profession every day, by learning how to do it better, by enhancing their awareness and their proficiency, transforming what ideally is a natural attitude into a business tool to generate value for the corporation. That’s why design thinking is called design thinking, not creative thinking or pink thinking or whatever else may fit that approach. In companies in the middle of their journey to design, the role of the designer/design-thinker goes beyond the design of products and visions. He must be the one driving the design-thinking approach across the corporation, spreading the new mind- set among other functions, with great benefit for the company. As well, it is extremely important to have design thinkers mingle with the marketers and engineers in the company; their role in generating a design-driven culture from within the organization is essential. Design thinkers can eventually intuitively produce innovation by design. The designer/design thinker adds a layer of consciousness to that approach, enabling design thinking to become more controllable, replicable, and efficient within the company processes (Figure 3). Answering some questions Design thinkers are willing to bet on the emotions in each phase of the product development process! And that’s the great difference between technology-driven and design-driven processes. Design thinkers can be designers, but they don’t necessarily have to be. I know engineers, marketers, lawyers, and chemists who are excellent design thinkers. natural attitude, but it can be directed. With training, natural design thinkers will become more conscious of a mindset they already own and they will become better able to leverage it at its full potential and with the highest level of productivity. With the right training, even those who do not come by design thinking naturally will gain some insights. Design thinking is like a sport—some people have natu- ral talent, but with appropriate coaching, anyone can improve his ability. If you want your organization to do innovation by design, leveraging design to its full potential—beyond product styling—as a process, as a business variable, and as an intrinsic characteristic of your product, eventually every individual in your organization will need to become a design thinker. </p> <p><strong>The netherlands</strong> </p> <p><strong>Die Niederlande</strong> </p> <p><strong>Nederland</strong> </p> </p>