Summary
For all of our sophisticated and often technical discussions of user experience, there is one area of experience that we have found difficult, if not impossible, to consider with the same degree of sophistication. In a time when we are obsessed with big data and facts, we have forgotten how to talk about principles and creativity without resorting to theories of cognitive psychology and the social sciences. My presentation will introduce a different perspective on creativity that goes beyond the craft of design process and will explore what principles are as the foundation of the flourishing enterprise. We are coming to a time when our ability to understand what is significant in human experience will affect not only the users of our products and services but all of those who participate in our most creative enterprises.
Key Insights
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Fourth order design involves systemic and organizational change requiring strategic conversations rather than traditional design control.
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Design thinking integrates engineering, marketing, and strategy, with modern marketing preparing users for future products.
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Principles in design are more than guidelines; they provide unity and a value framework to products, systems, and experiences.
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Creativity is a mental shift in perception, breaking fixed categories and merging opposites to create new meanings.
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Intuition plays a vital role in creativity as the ability to grasp important connections and organizing principles.
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Buchanan warns that user experience often misses the broader concern of the human experience of people.
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The four kinds of customers proposed by Philip Kotler offer a framework for evolving client relationships, with 'neighbors' and 'friends' representing deeper engagement.
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Many large institutions overlook deep principles in favor of competitive positioning and short-term profit.
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Applying fourth order design has led to notable social innovations in tax systems in Australia and South Africa.
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Facilitation and humble service are emerging as key roles for designers in facilitating organizational and social transformation.
Notable Quotes
"Marketing and strategy are part of design."
"The new marketing is about preparing users or customers for the new kinds of products that will emerge as time moves forward."
"Fourth order design is about understanding the system structure and how we intervene to create new pathways of experience."
"In fourth order design, the designer steps back and becomes the facilitator of discussions by others."
"We tend to confuse the experience of people with user experience, and I’m less interested in user experience than in the experience of people."
"Sustainability is dead because we don’t know what to sustain; we need to create flourishing communities instead."
"Principle is an idea or value that gives unity and organization to a product, system, service, and human experience."
"Creativity means a change in perception, from the familiar to the unfamiliar, even initially ridiculous."
"Intuition is the ability to see a connection so important that you could build a system out of it."
"Design is a service profession, a humble profession, less significant than the lives of the people we serve."
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