We’ve been busy at Normative since the new year started. Our team has grown by three and we have a few new great projects. With this fresh start we’ve been sharing and testing out our methods, techniques and ways of working. This has presented a nice opportunity to put more thought into how we work.

To that end, I’ve found myself revisiting ‘design as an activity versus a process.’ We’ve naturally worked that way for a while, but as new folks join it’s good to articulate what that means in a more focused manner.

So, what is design as an activity?

Design as an activity is a mind set. It’s not vastly different from design as a process, but requires a different way of thinking about doing design. It means conducting a series of exercises (such as open and closed sorting of research data, sketching, prototyping, testing, image and word association, synthetical thinking, etc.) with the aim of creating tools for facilitating the design steps that follow. The tools include stuff like: moodboards, personas, mental models, wires, user flows, prototypes, page compositions, napkin sketches, etc; and these aren’t treated as deliverables, which involves working collaboratively with clients so they are participants in the exercises and users of the tools instead of recipients of deliverables.

Why does design as an activity work?

Movement
One great reason for designers to work this way is because it keeps things moving. Exercises build on each other and the tools that are created as outcomes facilitate moving to the next step.

Tools vs. Deliverables
Treating outcomes as tools allows designers to focus less on updating documentation and more on designing. Designers can be less focused on creating documentation and more focused on building tools that facilitate discussion, creation and synthesis.

Flexibility
Design as an activity allows for great flexibility. Designers can focus on the vision, or desired end-state, and not worry about following a ridgid process. Different exercises can be used at different times as needed. An exercise may be doing synthetical thinking on your train ride home from work (a big reason why it’s so hard for designers to track hours!)