Positivity and creativity as true sources of enduring innovation
15 September, 2018Data Analytics and Big Data inside the organization
12 November, 2019
When you search in Google the words "computational design", what you find is a lot of entries related to the design applied to Architecture. For the majority it’s about using technology to help the houses, spaces and buildings design. But not for John Maeda. For this brilliant designer and theoretical computer scientist who was a professor at the MIT Media Lab for twelve years, computational design is another very different thing.
Maeda promotes the computational design idea as a new form of design beyond the classic design borned during the industrial revolution, and Design Thinking focused on innovation in relation to individual customer through empathy. In this way, this new form of digital design reacts to today’s world needs to respond to design at the same speed at which new technological paradigms like Moore's law move. I’m talking here about the need to design for billions of individuals people in real time, instead of traditional process where new functionalities testing activities, even the small ones, to get a perfect product are necessary to reach the market.
In order to achieve that speed, it’s necessary to mix different concepts, tools and methodologies in specific roles that must lead the process in an agile way: the computational designers. But unfortunately, we cannot find all we need in a single place. It is then a matter of smart combination of design, technology and business skills into these key people.
DESIGN
The different design types should allow us to create in the same way from discovery, empathy, ideation, prototyping and testing. The search for coherence and harmony, basis of the purest User Experience design, must be kept intact. But not at the same speed.
In contrast to the current Design Thinking boom, computational design is capable to separate grain from straw very quickly. A better technology knowledge should make us be able to know faster what is easy, difficult or impossible. How many times have we obtained great proposals at the end of the Design Thinking process could not be developed as we thought? A lot of. Too much perhaps. We understand here Engineering as those who will end up developing our product. So, although the most powerful Product Management methodologies warn about the need to involve Engineering teams from the beginning, rarely that happens naturally. At the end, the result is translated into not technologically feasible ideas. Or, on the contrary, how many times we create boring proposals have not conveniently integrated new technological paradigms? Then the result has been another: undesirable products or, at least, with fewer options to break the market and exploit to reach rapidly to billions of customers.
The design at this point must be practiced in a humanistic way. We must avoid the human interaction elimination and technology predominance. Because, above all, it should prevail always questions referred to what, who and why. We should not simplify and pave the way simply why technology can do that. The temptation is great, but the results can be disastrous.
TECHNOLOGY
The necessary speed to achieve the computational design objective is succeeded by paralleling the power to prove things with the power to make them come true. The same people that are prototyping and testing different possibilities should generate algorithms and required code to move quickly towards the minimum viable product. This is maybe the most important step in the process. So, the software development agility concept takes on a new meaning here. This the combination of design thinking, agile methodologies and DevOps taken to the extreme.
Yes. You’ve read well: computational designers must be able to read and generate code. But they must also be continuously learning everything related with technology, especially those that can suppose an advantage over our potential competitors in the market. Currently and specifically, it’s important to learn as much as possible about Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, without forgetting other technological paradigms such as the Internet of Things, human-machine interaction (chatbots, augmented reality, virtual reality ...) or Blockchain.
Because, let's be clear, ten main future trends in technology cover design key aspects such as people behavior, human interaction with its environment through voice, vision or touch, human being social relationship or spaces and work places. Considering this, is not it time maybe for designers to learn how to make new experiences come true beyond proposing the best possible alternatives?
BUSINESS
Being able to evaluate the potential value of any design decision, is critical for any company. The shitting cost contained into a decision along the product or service design process is proportional to the progress achieved in its life cycle. The cost of correcting technological and coding errors in the product support phase means multiplying by 500 what you would have spent in the conceptualization phase. The cost of a bad design decision means you cannot acquire value for a similar proportion.
It’s crucial then to shorten the Go to market time and arrival cycles with new and innovative proposals. The journey design must then converge with the differential sources of technological value, such as advanced analytics, in order to be able to iterate rapidly based on our solutions quantitative and qualitative assessments we are obtaining during the Design Thinking process. The computational designer must provide the necessary experience and skills to contribute at this point, and always take the best possible decisions to maximize our products’ impact possibilities on the market. Only in this way we’re able to achieve the needed agility and speed to change on the fly without incurring huge costs.
It would be hard if at this point you’ve not realized yet about the radical change digital computational design supposes for the digital products and services design. From reaching millions of users with classic design, we’re now able to reach billions. And what was previously achieved in weeks or months combining channels, is now achieved immediately through the web. This causes we never close our products, evolving them with micro improvements all the time. Then, designers assume higher uncertainty levels than before, which makes them more receptive to discovery, test and investigation. And they do these new things immersed in a much more virtual world than before. A new world where data or models predominate over paper, post-its or other physical things.
A key aspect to understand this new form of design intrinsic value for many technology companies and digital startups, is the intimate relationship between computer design and customer and product ideas. This is when eCommerce takes a new dimension in which agility, omnichannel and experience customization are key. And companies know it. During the years 2016, 2017 and 2018, the design companies’ acquisition by large technology companies and consulting groups has accelerated. Companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Accenture or Altran are investing large sums in hiring design talent and buying computational design capabilities. All of them are obsessed in applying this new type of design to a better customer behavior comprehension, make them possible to get happier customers who buy and recommend their products. And the truth is they are achieving it, obtaining spectacular conversion and customer useful life increases through the creation of successful digital experiences and, consequently, quantifiable impact.
Everything I have mentioned above is causing today companies and new entrepreneurs are eager to incorporate value generation speed capability in their DNA. Therefore, the computational designer hunting has started a long time ago. Apparently, the target is a lone wolf of technology, business and design who uses his mind and computer science knowledge to better understanding of social sciences to be much closer to the user in a much faster way. Everyone is looking for him now. And you?
