Have you ever had to pick out a gift for someone you didn’t know very well?   Felt the pressure of selecting something for a stranger without knowing what they already have or what they need?   And have you ever been on the receiving end?  We all have the wool socks, random ceramic mugs, and piles of coffee table books lying around.  Wouldn’t you rather receive something you actually want and need?

Designing an object for a stranger is similar to the thought process behind buying that person a gift.  Ideally, you give them something they want, something they’ll use, something they maybe didn’t know they needed.   A successful design meets these same criteria.  And lucky for us, there are existing frameworks and methodologies designers have used for decades to guide product development. You’ll even find that the same strategies you use when trying to figure out what to buy that stranger are represented in these frameworks.   For example, your first instinct might be to ask someone who knows the person for whom you’re buying the gift for suggestions.  Or some insight.  Similarly, most design methodologies are rooted in the understanding of your end-user.

It’s unfortunately not as easy as plugging variables into an equation, and like most things it takes practice and experience to build your success.  But you can help yourself and your team by using the multitude of resources available.  There are a glut of books on design process and methodologies, IDEO’s HCD Toolkit, and workshops (such as Catapult’s) available to help get you started.

To start, here’s five quick principles that I hope will aid your design project:

1.  Don’t be afraid to get specific.

“Let’s solve the energy crisis” has way too much ambiguity.  Good design comes from creating constraints.

2.  Design is a conversation, not a monologue.

It’s also multi-lingual.  If you find you’re the only person in the room, make an effort to surround yourself with a multi-disciplinary team to balance your perspective, consider cross-cultural issues, or build a business model.  And don’t forget that this conversation includes stakeholders and users who are in-the-field.

3.  Beware the solution in search of a problem.

Spend at least the first quarter of your timeline, whatever it may be, avoiding generating solutions.   Good solutions emerge when you have enough information to know why they’re good.  You know you’re in danger if you’ve developed technology without a place to field test your prototypes.  Or… you have no idea what I mean by “field test.”

4.  Create some context.

Remember the gift giving for a stranger?  Do everything you can to know more about who and what you’re designing for.  Because they are the ultimate decision makers on the success of your efforts.  If they don’t want or use it, then your efforts are in vain.

5.  We can’t assume one size fits all right off the bat.

Despite all the hype and uber-focus on “scaleability”, start with focused efforts and you’ll be surprised at how good design can translate and scale.

What do we most of us actually do when we have to buy a gift for a stranger?   We buy gift cards.  Gift cards empower the recipient to choose their own gift, which is exactly what we would want.   The power of choice.  Your end-user is the same – don’t convince yourself that they aren’t.