How similar are digital design and cooking?
This summer, I started a copywriting internship at Central, a small digital design firm. This Brussels-based studio is a striking place. It houses a team equally passionate about cooking as it is about creating digital products. To a design newbie like me, Central’s design process seemed a bit wizard-like at first. With time, though, I came to realize that the design process is very similar to cooking (an activity I’m a little more familiar with). Reflecting on the link between the two has helped me understand each step of the design process.
Just follow the recipe:
1. Understand
Look, listen and ask questions
The first thing we do when fixing lunch for friends is figure out what they want to eat. We find out how hungry they are (snack or three-course meal?), what they are allergic to (no peanuts?), what kind of food they need (refreshing cold soup or comforting chicken broth?). Thinking about each person’s needs can radically change our dish.
The same is true in digital design. Before thinking of any potential solutions, designers find out the client’s business goals (for example, to attract 10% more customers). Knowing this, the designers can pin-point which of the client’s digital tools they need to improve (the website, the app, the blog…). Then, they identify what end-users need. The team at Central does this by analyzing and conducting surveys, field-research and interviews. They also use personas: fictitious users that help them think of all the needs a digital product must fulfill. For example, what would Luciana, a freelance yoga instructor and climber need from this app?
2. Ideate
Come up with ideas
To come up with lunch ideas, we open the fridge to see what we have to work with. From there, we can start brainstorming about how to best satisfy our lunchers’ appetites. Just like a fridge is not a bottomless pit of goodies, the designers’ toolbox has its limits. The ‘ideation’ phase is about using the available ingredients (pictures, graphics, animation, text, video etc.) to come up with as many potential solutions as possible.
During design workshops at Central, the designers and their clients start by sketching all the solutions they can think of. They don’t spend a lot of time on each sketch. This allows them to come up with the widest possible range of ideas. The most promising sketches are then further developed as prototypes.
3. Prototype
Try it on Bobby
This step is often skipped in informal settings (who’s got the time to test flavor combinations? Especially when everyone’s starving!). However, as the Institute of Design at Stanford explains it, prototyping allows “to fail quickly and cheaply.” It’s cheaper to have Bobby try a small cube of cheese with ginger than to make 3 liters of feta and ginger soup before finding out it’s not the best combination…
The designers create prototypes, also called wireframes, on paper or in digital form (using programs like Sketch or InVision). Then they discuss them as a team. A prototype is often pretty realistic — in digital versions, the buttons are clickable and testers can navigate through the app or website — but it’s still aesthetically basic. Then there’s another round of selections. Only the best ideas get to go through further visual design.
4. Experiment
Try it on more people than just Bobby
Usually, when we create a dish we like, we share it with friends and family and ask them what they think. Central’s team often experiments through simulations. The point is to use a product as end-users would. The Central team used this technique to test a notification e-mail designed for a visitor management service called Proxyclick. They pretended to be real visitors getting the e-mail and made sure it answered all their questions.
5. Improve over time
As more people taste one of our new dishes, we get feedback about what part of it they like or dislike (hopefully not too many of those…). People also tell us about similar recipes they’ve made themselves. Inevitably, we refine the recipe over time.
Central makes a point of closely examining metrics and user feedback on products they’ve launched. Based on these, they refine their products continuously. As they like to say at Central: “great design is like great wine, it only gets better with time”.
That’s it!
So there you have it, an intern’s simplified version of the design process. Who knew lunch-making skills could be so useful to understand design? Only problem now is, all this talk of food’s made me kind of hungry… I just had lunch.
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P.S. We just published a new video about what it’s like to work at Central. Check it out. And here are more stories from Central.
