Presentation to the board of the Delaware Valley Bicycle Club

Moving into Social Media

This is a presentation I am working on to present to the board of the Delaware Valley Bicycle Club (DVBC.org) to help them think about how they might begin using social media to promote their rides and events.

… don’t try to show taxonomies, concept maps, site maps, task analysis grids, design process maps and even wireframes to execs.  These tools are all useful for designers, but not for execs.  Please trust me when I say they will only serve to freak out the execs.

A perception persists that designers are the arbiters of style, and that we work mainly in slick big-city lofts behind oversized computer monitors. There’s no doubt that many of us do love giving form to objects (likewise, few can deny the allure of a nice loft). But design is now so much more than aesthetics. Designers are systems thinkers. We create everything from electric vehicle infrastructures and citywide transit networks to social media healthcare apps and countrywide HIV helplines.

To create these kinds of complex systems we have to spend time doing research in the field, so we can understand who will be using what we design and how they will use it. This is how we can make designs that are relevant and usable.

Here’s a link to the full article, which describes a recent pilot project she worked on in rural Zambia ”that used text messaging to deliver lab results between doctors and HIV-positive mothers and infants.” Great stuff.

In reality a product is all about the experience. It is about discovery, purchase, anticipation, opening the package, the very first usage. It is also about continued usage, learning, the need for assistance, updating, maintenance, supplies, and eventual renewal in the form of disposal or exchange. Most companies treat every stage as a different process, done by a different division of the company: R&D, manufacturing, packaging, sales, and then as a necessary afterthought, service. As a result there is seldom any coherence. Instead, there are contradictions. If you think of the product as a service, then the separate parts make no sense–the point of a product is to offer great experiences to its owner, which means that it offers a service. And that experience, that service, is the result of the coherence of the parts. The real value of a product consists of far more than the product’s components.

Why is there a difference between the information architect and the visual designer, if designers understand hierarchy and organization, why isn’t it up to the visual designers to set up the wire framing?

Her nonperishable site promises to be a great resource for budding designers and art school students — check it out!