Design Toolkit for Businesses
Design can help organisations understand their customers and develop products or services around them. Unfortunately, in this economic context, not many companies can afford it and this often led to poorly designed services or business failures. So how can we make design become more affordable and help business people start thinking like designers?
To answer this question I’m developing a Design Toolkit for Businesses that aims at creating a bridge between business and design experts. I have also designed a new model of collaboration between clients and designers, that will allow clients to take over some of the activities that are usually run by designers in order not only to save money, but more importantly to gather a better understanding of their customers and empathise with them. Designers, in this context, will become Design Coach rather than Realiser.
I would like to share my work-in-progress with people interested in the same topic and discuss pros and cons of this approach and how to enhance the toolkit.
Giulia Piu
shared this idea
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Giulia Piu
commented
Hi Salim, thanks for your feedback!
When I mentioned Design Coaching I meant exactly what you said: find a way for clients to take over some of the design activities and verify their work with expert designers (Design Coaches)!
Also, as some research activities need to be designed to be effective, Designers can plan those activities and prepare the tools needed to find out specific information. Clients will then be responsible to run the research with their customers…
I’m really looking forward to meeting you and the other people interested in this topic tomorrow and share our ideas on how to make it happen! -
AdminSalim Virani (Admin, Leancamp) commented
HI Giulia, this sounds great! In my eyes, any tool that can help businesses empathise with customers is a welcome step forward. This is an area that can open up a new market for design, and it's certainly helpful for businesses to learn faster and reduce market risk.
Also, a few people (myself included) are considering new ways of helping businesses in this way. I've found the business model canvas is quite useful for considering new models to share knowledge with SMEs. Moving from Consultant, to Coach, to Teacher, maybe there's a further step in which clients use toolkits autonomously, but can verify their work with an expert designer along the way.