D3: Design Foundation
Design Foundation introduces some of the key concepts, on which D3 is built upon
Delivery to Wow
The systems, processes, culture, environment, people, policies, and behaviors are the result of who we are and what we want to achieve. In current model, from the Project Managers to Programmers are rewarded based on deliveries, not on the usefulness on the product/solution. As a result, no one cares about customers and what they do with the software.
Moving from 'delivery' to 'wow' is the key to become an innovative company.
Definition of Solution Design
Design is the art of creating a beautiful, elegant and innovative solutions which works in the user and customer context. Alan Cooper has a clear definition for the design, “Design is all about, planning for artifacts, whose form, content, behavior is useful, unusable, desirable, as well as economically viable, and technically feasible”
A good design should result in a system, which eliminates existing tasks (wherever possible), speedup the tasks with efficiency, save money, save time, and makes people fall in love.
Revolution and Evolution
Creating an innovative solutions is both evolution and revolution, we need a radical differentiation, which needs to be realized in an incremental way. A vision realized in one step at a time.
While the Incremental and Agile methodologies provides framework for developing software in evolutionary way, D3 provides framework for visualizing the bigger picture and revolutionize the solution design.
Design-Engineering-Management
Design, Engineering and Management are different and equally important aspect of any development.
Management help you to focus on delivery, budget and profit
Engineering help you to focus on quality and maintainability of the code
Design help you to focus on radical differentiation, wow factor and bottom line of the customer
The real challenge is understanding these differences, and bringing the right set of skills, expertise, experiences and leadership, to work together in a collaborative way.
Design Boundaries
Design means different for different people. For an Technical Architect, design is about the integration of different components, layers and sub systems. For a programmer and system analyst, design is how to structure the component and code in a better way. For a graphic designer, it all about bringing a better look and feel.
Most of the time, we limit the possibilities within our own boundaries of our understanding.
D3 calls for a perspective change and move our understanding one step further to the technical design and coding; and focus on how we can design a better life experience for the users.
i4:Elements of Solution Design
A good design consists of 4 fundamental elements, Innovation, Interaction, Information and Intelligence
Innovation is larger level breakthrough in solving the indented problem
Interaction is about how software/ or product behave with the users
Information is how you arrange the different elements on the screen
Intelligence focus on little things which can change the usability of an application.