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Hi, I'm Craig and
welcome to the Treehouse show.

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The Treehouse show is a conversation
with the Treehouse community.

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[MUSIC]

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In this episode we'll take a deep
dive into design thinking and

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what that means with our wonderful
guest teacher and Creative Director for

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Project Whitespace at IBM, Devin O'Bryan.

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>> My name is Devin O'Bryan, and
I am the Creative Director for

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Project Whitespace at IBM.

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>> So what is design?

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>> Design is about empowering a user.

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Design is essentially
taking someone's intent and

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helping them realize that intent,
whether it's you providing a set of tools,

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you providing a process, but
it's about empowering and enabling a user.

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>> What's web design?

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>> So over the course of the last several
years, I've seen web design evolve,

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grow, and the role of the web designer
has continued to change as well.

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What started off as just simple markup,
and

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being able to take that content and
get into a single screen,

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now it's about being able to port a single
bit of information across multiple media.

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And so web design is continuing to evolve

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beyond more than just,
I'm gonna look at it on a single screen.

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Now it's, I can look at it on my phone.

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I can look at it on a TV.

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I can see this manifesting across a number
of different storytelling possibilities.

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So you think about this concept of
omnichannel, it's kind of becoming

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everywhere and everything and I love
the fact that it's continuing to evolve.

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>> So what does a designer do?

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>> On a day-to-day basis,
designers are looking to enhance a user,

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to help them stretch themselves.

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Whether it's a matter of
creating a product or

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a service that's going to allow
them to become a better version or

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more effective version of themselves.

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But what it comes down to is essentially
listening to a user's need and

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trying to find out what's
need versus what's want and

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then balancing those things out to
figure out what's best for your user.

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>> Now, as a designer,
how do you approach a new project?

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>> When I start a new project,
I really do my best to listen.

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It's hard because I wanna get in and
just immediately start making.

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I get really excited, but
that excitement can work against me.

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What I have to do is listen, and

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that's probably the most
important step out of all of it.

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If you can separate out what it
is that your user is telling you

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in terms of what they need and

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you can understand what it is maybe
a request or something that they want.

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And to be able to balance
those things out, it

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takes a keen ear and
it takes quite a bit of patience.

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But once you find that balance, then you

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have the ability to make something
that's really meaningful for that user.

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>> What tools are invaluable
to you as a designer?

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>> A designer's gonna have
a pretty decent collection of

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tools over the course of their career, but
the fundamentals are really pretty simple.

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You have your ears, and then you
have some type of mark making tool.

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Along the way, you're going to
learn a ton of different tools.

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And the key is not so much learning
any specific tool at any given time.

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It's how are you taking these tools and
applying them?

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How do you understand
the purpose of the tool?

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Because If you can make yourself a better
designer through the use of a tool,

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great, do that.

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But if you don't understand
how the tools connect,

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how those tools connect to your user,
how they connect to you as a designer,

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then really you're just kinda of learning
a new skill set just to learn it.

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You've got to go into that with
a particular understanding of,

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what do I wanna get out of this?

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Why do I wanna grow this particular area?

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Why do I need to become better
working with this particular tool?

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So if you start with your ears and you
start with a mark making tool like a pen

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or even a Wacom tablet,
being able to jot things down,

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whatever that is,
it's all an extension of you.

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And if you can figure out a way
to extend you more effectively,

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you're gonna become the designer
that you ultimately wanna be.

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>> What are some design trends
that you're currently seeing?

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>> Probably my favorite design trend
that I'm seeing right now is that young

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designers are becoming so much more aware
of the social impact of their work.

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There maybe visual trends, there maybe
trends in terms of users' experience.

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But when it comes down to it,
there has to be a strong

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understanding of why it is that
we're making what we're making, and

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there's an accountability that
has to go along with that.

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And the fact that there's so

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many young designers that
are caring about that is excellent.

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It gives me a lot of hope for

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the new generations of
designers that are coming out.

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On top of that,

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it's inspiring older designers as well to
think about why it is that they're making.

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>> How do you think machine learning
will affect the future of design?

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>> So machine learning is
still kind of in its infancy.

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But what we've discovered about machine
learning is that it's allowing us to

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work faster and
more effectively then ever before.

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We have a lot of questions
that need to be answered

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as it relates to how we factor in ethics,

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or doing things in a moral way
when it comes to machine learning.

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But on the pure processing side of things,

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what is advantageous about machine
learning is that we're able to combine

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the creativity of your
average human being with

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a superhuman capability of being able to
process massive amounts of information.

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And what this does is it gives a new

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sense of where generative design can go.

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We're creating a system and allowing that

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processing power to continue the process.

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Whereas originally it was just,
we would have a handful of designers,

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maybe one designer trying
to tackle a single problem.

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Now we have the ability of several
hundred, maybe thousand designers.

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But like I said, we still have a lot
of questions that are unanswered.

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It's a brand new field,

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there are a lot of things that we'll
probably get wrong along the way.

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But we do have to keep
pushing that envelope.

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We do have to keep asking
questions along the way.

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[SOUND]
>> Thanks for watching the Treehouse show.

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To get in touch with the show,
reach out to me on Twitter or

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shoot an email to show@teamtreehouse.com.

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We'd love to hear from you.

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And I know I'll be on the lookout for
Devin's design thinking course.

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Our team went to IBM's headquarters
in Austin, Texas to shoot it.

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[MUSIC]