Tim Brown TED Talk July 2009

This was one of the first videos I watched after discovering the wonderful resource of the fantastic "TED Talks". A comment on the video by a Robert Chesley caught my eye, as he sought to sum up the core message of Brown's talk. I'd try to paraphrase, but it sounds so right as it is:

"It's about looking past the small "new and improved" versions of design and exploring possibilities. It's not enough to strive for new and improved. That's the old school approach. What we have needed and are now beginning to move toward is the integration of ideas based on human centered actual needs. The context of the use needs to be central to the design itself, not the other way around. This approach means you have to get away from the CAD station and actually talk to customers and watch them. Above all listen to what they are saying relative to the context that they alone can bring to the table. From this position you will gain insight into the real problems they face. Once you truly understand the problem you can begin the process of integrating related problems of other customers. This is where real design innovation begins. This is the start of the process for developing dynamic disruptive changes in the market."

I think that this is the elusive goal every designer, regardless of what you're designing: to try to genuinely understand the problem you're designing to solve. One of my favorite quotes is from Zelda Harrison. She gets at the crux of the issues: "Never ask a designer to design a bridge. Ask a designer to design a way to cross the water".