How to Begin a Design Conversation — It’s Easier than you Think
I loved everything about this book — the eye-opening insights into how words play an oversized role in design, that we should begin not end with words to create human interaction, and that at our core, we humans are conversational creatures.
Conversational Design is a slender volume, meaning I could focus on powering through it after work and on the weekend. It’s always inspiring to learn something new in a field that has grabbed my interest, and it’s easy to make time for things you’re passionate about. I appreciate author Erika Hall sending me a copy after i participated in her Twitter Q&A.
My career has found me working side-by-side with designers who eventually incorporated words into their work, but they didn’t always begin there. “Never permit lorem ipsum” is a surprising bullet point (p. 120) since I cut my advertising agency teeth reading the familiar phrases from Cicero.
People are divided about the merits of lorem ipsum. It’s either a tool to show how copy will be placed — without allowing clients to focus on the words when reviewing design — or it’s “Greeked” copy that puts design focus at the forefront, exactly where Erika Hall thinks it shouldn’t be.
“The tricky part about designing interactions with interconnected digital systems is making them feel like they’ve been designed for humans by humans. It’s easy to let the material of machine logic dominate in a sort of software brutalism” (p. 23). This visual of Brutalism architecture stands out to me since I work in a Brutalist-designed building. It’s a harsh, nearly 40-year-old concrete structure, but one whose vertical aggregate ridges has stood the test of time.
Because we communicate with words, either spoken or written, I agree that design should begin there. And it’s not just design that will benefit from beginning with words, it’s also a strategy that establishes design interaction systems.
The Minimum Viable Conversation Worksheet (p. 117) is a stunning artifact — and a visual that brought home for me all the concepts in Conversational Design. Hall says a team should be able to complete this document before beginning any prototypes that might become “shiny vessels for weak objects” (p. 116).
IDEO U promotes the all important question “How might we?” that begins design exploration. Hall recommends beginning with a similar question, “What are we here to do?” Both are valid and should help us strike up that all important conversation, leading to better outcomes for our customers.
References
Conversational Design by Erika Hall, 2018
Lorem Ipsum, https://loremipsum.io/#controversy
IDEO U’s Design Kit, https://www.designkit.org/methods/3
