How Design thinking has been adopted by organisations in all sectors of the economy.

Design

LEADERS INSIGHT

Rima Khachatryan

Who did we interview?

Rima, is a design enthusiast who is always eager to dive deep into the world of design. As a former digital marketing manager, she had the chance to interact with many designers, and the more she learned about design, the more she realised she needed to make the switch. She also works as a UX/UI design tutor and mentor, helping aspiring and junior designers learn and grow.

Let us quickly get to our expert's point of view.

Rima Khachatryan

Let us quickly get to our expert's point of view.

• Ques 1 : First secret of great design is? How can we implement Design Thinking in an organisation?

  Ans : One of the most important missions that design and designers have in general, in my opinion, is being able to really address people’s needs and solve their problems just exactly in the way they’d expect them to. That said, I believe that building products that match the needs of their target users is the first key to success. As for implementing Design Thinking aspects in designing products and solutions, I think there isn’t one single answer. There are a number of factors involved both from users and business needs perspective when deciding to implement Design Thinking in Product Design. Companies should just make mindful choices and select the situationally necessary methodologies and ideas of Design Thinking and make the best use of those. Sometimes the choices are also leaning towards User-Centred Design and that’s just another great way of making sure to have the user in the centre of everything companies do. Summing up I’d say that it’s all about making pragmatic choices regarding the adoption of Design Thinking as the core methodology of building products. It’s never about just rigidly following the traditional process but wisely integrating what they really need at a particular stage or for a particular purpose.

• Ques 2 : Please elaborate on the nature of the relationship between data and design.

  Ans : DDDM or Data-Driven Decision-Making is a widespread method of making sure to align business decisions with the actual business needs. It’s impossible to overlook the importance of Data when making design-related decisions too because those choices are so intertwined that missing a point in one (design) might irrevocably affect the other aspect (business). As designers we make sure to make the best use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods and data is everything the quantitative research results are about. Thus data is really very important for identifying both business needs and opportunities and pointing out the possible gaps in user experience that would also complement the findings coming from qualitative user research making the overall picture complete and more accurate.

• Ques 3 : What do you see as the future of design in your field? What's going to come up?

  Ans : As we’re discussing this right now, there are a number of important events happening in the world of tech and design, probably shaping the future of design and the future of technology. On the one hand it’s the AI technology taking all aspects of people’s daily work by storm. On the other hand it’s the rise of AR/VR technologies that suggest a whole new way of envisioning and building things. Deriving from technology and speaking about the technical aspects of design, we can’t but mention the exciting development around Design Systems with companies like Figma featuring and perfecting the cross-functional collaboration between the teams and the creation of consistent design assets at lightspeed.

• Ques 4 : Your thoughts on the relationship between design and activism.

  Ans : Design is first and foremost a language of communication. Designers have always tried to make a social impact through design. If we take a look at different pages of world history we’ll encounter design encompassing a big part of those events taking place. Go back to the French revolution in the 18th century when political posters spread the urge to battle for democracy all around. If you want to see the art of persuasion in an even more straightforward way, just take a look at the US and Soviet posters during WW2. The amount of metaphors and the abundance of messages they carried deserve a book of their own! In today’s digital age when the opportunities and the tools are so diverse, design activism has taken unprecedented forms and formats. Not a single social call for action bypasses design. Design has become one of the main media to spread the word and make a change in the world. Now more than ever we, as designers, need to be very conscious and wise about what and how we create because what we present to people’s attention reaches and affects far more people than we would have imagined.

• Ques 5 : In the designing world, throwing your individuality into a project is heresy. Please tell us about your journey through the design strategy and life experiences that have shaped you into the person you are today.

  Ans : It’s very easy to let your character and taste interfere with the projects you work on. In fact there is a thin line between a unique working style and the risk of letting individual and oftentimes biased assumptions interfere with common sense. Design is all about remaining objective and wise so we need a clear strategy to drive objective results that make a difference. That’s what I try to do in my work, too. It’s been a journey of priorities constantly redefined and skills learnt. It’s never easy because on the way to great gains you sometimes need to make sacrifices too. However, what you need to do is find the ideal balance of things, be that for a design strategy, a style of work or decisions we make in life.

• Ques 6 : What advice do you have for the design community?

  Ans : Explore, discover, listen, learn, grow and never give up.