Insights

Great design is simple, beautiful, and easy to use. It creates a sense of purpose and place. It responds to user needs, and it just works. Aside from these characteristics, how can we know whether a design is “good”? Moreover, how can a business know whether the investment of time and money into a design was worth it?

Last year, I left my peaceful full-time job, became a freelance design consultant, and eventually, among other things, had found myself designing and delivering workshops on design thinking, customer journey mapping, and service design. At a certain point, I was asked to curate a short four-day course, which meant thinking through everything from overall curriculum to daily agenda and roles of invited lecturers and tutors.

The article covering my approach triggered an unexpected amount of attention and tons of reactions. I got pretty much everything from trolling and criticism – «you made simple things complicated» – to job offers and conference invites.

Accessibility is often discussed in the context of single or specific technologies like websites and apps. But today UX and Service designers often work on complex, connected products with several digital and physical touchpoints. How might we design accessible experiences for these environments?