Item 3 in top ten list is most important. Too many projects fail
because the designer is too knowledgeable about what he/she
wants to do but does not seek a full understanding of how the user
will perceive and use the product. In software an important element
is the help file. This must be written with the user as the focus. All
too often the help file tells the user what the product can do but
does not tell how to do it.
At the “From Business to Buttons” conference, innovation expert and Microsoft veteran Scott Berkun discusses why designers fail.
According to Berkun, it’s as much business process as it is the design process itself that leads to failure.
Berkun says:
- All designers fail 95 percent of the time
- Designers fail because they set the wrong goals and fail to meet them
- Designers can avoid failure by owning up to mistakes, reviewing past failures and learning how to mitigate it
According to Berkun, designers need post-op analysis just like doctors, forensic investigators, the military, manufacturers and software developers do.
“Studying the perfect cases doesn’t inform as much as the fail cases do,” Berkun says.
Here’s the video:
Interested in more? Read Berkun’s survey of designers and related folks on the topic, which offers several self-reported reasons for failure.
Here are the top 10:
- People in non-design roles making design decisions
- Managers making design decisions w/o design training
- Designers don’t seek enough data before designing
- No time is provided for long term thinking
- Not receptive to critical feedback
- Lack of awareness of the business fundamentals
- Only lip-service is paid to “User centered design”
- It’s never made safe to fail or experiment
- Designer’s power diluted by too many cooks
- Over-reliance on one kind of design style
