1 00:00:00,410 --> 00:00:02,600 Hi, I'm Craig and welcome to the Treehouse show. 2 00:00:02,600 --> 00:00:04,694 The Treehouse show is a conversation with the Treehouse community. 3 00:00:04,694 --> 00:00:10,248 [MUSIC] 4 00:00:10,248 --> 00:00:13,469 In this episode we'll take a deep dive into design thinking and 5 00:00:13,469 --> 00:00:17,300 what that means with our wonderful guest teacher and Creative Director for 6 00:00:17,300 --> 00:00:19,700 Project Whitespace at IBM, Devin O'Bryan. 7 00:00:20,820 --> 00:00:25,410 >> My name is Devin O'Bryan, and I am the Creative Director for 8 00:00:25,410 --> 00:00:27,460 Project Whitespace at IBM. 9 00:00:27,460 --> 00:00:29,680 >> So what is design? 10 00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:33,040 >> Design is about empowering a user. 11 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:39,525 Design is essentially taking someone's intent and 12 00:00:39,525 --> 00:00:44,835 helping them realize that intent, whether it's you providing a set of tools, 13 00:00:44,835 --> 00:00:48,795 you providing a process, but it's about empowering and enabling a user. 14 00:00:50,335 --> 00:00:52,025 >> What's web design? 15 00:00:52,025 --> 00:00:57,310 >> So over the course of the last several years, I've seen web design evolve, 16 00:00:57,310 --> 00:01:02,750 grow, and the role of the web designer has continued to change as well. 17 00:01:02,750 --> 00:01:06,650 What started off as just simple markup, and 18 00:01:06,650 --> 00:01:11,850 being able to take that content and get into a single screen, 19 00:01:11,850 --> 00:01:17,620 now it's about being able to port a single bit of information across multiple media. 20 00:01:19,030 --> 00:01:22,480 And so web design is continuing to evolve 21 00:01:23,620 --> 00:01:26,920 beyond more than just, I'm gonna look at it on a single screen. 22 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:29,440 Now it's, I can look at it on my phone. 23 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:31,520 I can look at it on a TV. 24 00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:38,640 I can see this manifesting across a number of different storytelling possibilities. 25 00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:43,980 So you think about this concept of omnichannel, it's kind of becoming 26 00:01:43,980 --> 00:01:49,579 everywhere and everything and I love the fact that it's continuing to evolve. 27 00:01:50,710 --> 00:01:53,391 >> So what does a designer do? 28 00:01:53,391 --> 00:01:59,473 >> On a day-to-day basis, designers are looking to enhance a user, 29 00:01:59,473 --> 00:02:03,180 to help them stretch themselves. 30 00:02:03,180 --> 00:02:10,310 Whether it's a matter of creating a product or 31 00:02:10,310 --> 00:02:13,750 a service that's going to allow them to become a better version or 32 00:02:13,750 --> 00:02:17,040 more effective version of themselves. 33 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:22,841 But what it comes down to is essentially listening to a user's need and 34 00:02:22,841 --> 00:02:27,364 trying to find out what's need versus what's want and 35 00:02:27,364 --> 00:02:33,488 then balancing those things out to figure out what's best for your user. 36 00:02:33,488 --> 00:02:36,470 >> Now, as a designer, how do you approach a new project? 37 00:02:38,300 --> 00:02:42,330 >> When I start a new project, I really do my best to listen. 38 00:02:42,330 --> 00:02:47,100 It's hard because I wanna get in and just immediately start making. 39 00:02:47,100 --> 00:02:51,050 I get really excited, but that excitement can work against me. 40 00:02:51,050 --> 00:02:53,520 What I have to do is listen, and 41 00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:56,600 that's probably the most important step out of all of it. 42 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:01,010 If you can separate out what it is that your user is telling you 43 00:03:01,010 --> 00:03:03,360 in terms of what they need and 44 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:08,670 you can understand what it is maybe a request or something that they want. 45 00:03:08,670 --> 00:03:12,030 And to be able to balance those things out, it 46 00:03:13,690 --> 00:03:18,300 takes a keen ear and it takes quite a bit of patience. 47 00:03:19,460 --> 00:03:23,470 But once you find that balance, then you 48 00:03:23,470 --> 00:03:27,980 have the ability to make something that's really meaningful for that user. 49 00:03:29,540 --> 00:03:32,560 >> What tools are invaluable to you as a designer? 50 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:38,200 >> A designer's gonna have a pretty decent collection of 51 00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:43,770 tools over the course of their career, but the fundamentals are really pretty simple. 52 00:03:43,770 --> 00:03:47,840 You have your ears, and then you have some type of mark making tool. 53 00:03:49,230 --> 00:03:53,360 Along the way, you're going to learn a ton of different tools. 54 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:59,890 And the key is not so much learning any specific tool at any given time. 55 00:03:59,890 --> 00:04:04,320 It's how are you taking these tools and applying them? 56 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:07,790 How do you understand the purpose of the tool? 57 00:04:07,790 --> 00:04:12,490 Because If you can make yourself a better designer through the use of a tool, 58 00:04:12,490 --> 00:04:14,180 great, do that. 59 00:04:14,180 --> 00:04:16,910 But if you don't understand how the tools connect, 60 00:04:16,910 --> 00:04:22,100 how those tools connect to your user, how they connect to you as a designer, 61 00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:24,860 then really you're just kinda of learning a new skill set just to learn it. 62 00:04:25,910 --> 00:04:30,500 You've got to go into that with a particular understanding of, 63 00:04:30,500 --> 00:04:32,510 what do I wanna get out of this? 64 00:04:32,510 --> 00:04:35,020 Why do I wanna grow this particular area? 65 00:04:35,020 --> 00:04:38,830 Why do I need to become better working with this particular tool? 66 00:04:38,830 --> 00:04:43,550 So if you start with your ears and you start with a mark making tool like a pen 67 00:04:44,610 --> 00:04:49,910 or even a Wacom tablet, being able to jot things down, 68 00:04:49,910 --> 00:04:53,060 whatever that is, it's all an extension of you. 69 00:04:53,060 --> 00:04:57,830 And if you can figure out a way to extend you more effectively, 70 00:04:57,830 --> 00:04:59,890 you're gonna become the designer that you ultimately wanna be. 71 00:05:01,070 --> 00:05:03,200 >> What are some design trends that you're currently seeing? 72 00:05:04,230 --> 00:05:09,370 >> Probably my favorite design trend that I'm seeing right now is that young 73 00:05:09,370 --> 00:05:15,290 designers are becoming so much more aware of the social impact of their work. 74 00:05:17,330 --> 00:05:21,470 There maybe visual trends, there maybe trends in terms of users' experience. 75 00:05:21,470 --> 00:05:25,870 But when it comes down to it, there has to be a strong 76 00:05:25,870 --> 00:05:30,420 understanding of why it is that we're making what we're making, and 77 00:05:30,420 --> 00:05:34,050 there's an accountability that has to go along with that. 78 00:05:34,050 --> 00:05:35,020 And the fact that there's so 79 00:05:35,020 --> 00:05:40,300 many young designers that are caring about that is excellent. 80 00:05:40,300 --> 00:05:42,310 It gives me a lot of hope for 81 00:05:42,310 --> 00:05:46,870 the new generations of designers that are coming out. 82 00:05:46,870 --> 00:05:47,420 On top of that, 83 00:05:47,420 --> 00:05:53,210 it's inspiring older designers as well to think about why it is that they're making. 84 00:05:54,420 --> 00:05:57,250 >> How do you think machine learning will affect the future of design? 85 00:05:58,980 --> 00:06:01,370 >> So machine learning is still kind of in its infancy. 86 00:06:02,820 --> 00:06:08,720 But what we've discovered about machine learning is that it's allowing us to 87 00:06:10,350 --> 00:06:16,200 work faster and more effectively then ever before. 88 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:21,180 We have a lot of questions that need to be answered 89 00:06:21,180 --> 00:06:26,680 as it relates to how we factor in ethics, 90 00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:32,130 or doing things in a moral way when it comes to machine learning. 91 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,640 But on the pure processing side of things, 92 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:42,990 what is advantageous about machine learning is that we're able to combine 93 00:06:42,990 --> 00:06:47,990 the creativity of your average human being with 94 00:06:47,990 --> 00:06:53,860 a superhuman capability of being able to process massive amounts of information. 95 00:06:53,860 --> 00:06:59,507 And what this does is it gives a new 96 00:06:59,507 --> 00:07:06,585 sense of where generative design can go. 97 00:07:06,585 --> 00:07:11,311 We're creating a system and allowing that 98 00:07:11,311 --> 00:07:16,174 processing power to continue the process. 99 00:07:16,174 --> 00:07:20,420 Whereas originally it was just, we would have a handful of designers, 100 00:07:20,420 --> 00:07:23,690 maybe one designer trying to tackle a single problem. 101 00:07:25,150 --> 00:07:31,020 Now we have the ability of several hundred, maybe thousand designers. 102 00:07:32,510 --> 00:07:36,750 But like I said, we still have a lot of questions that are unanswered. 103 00:07:36,750 --> 00:07:38,724 It's a brand new field, 104 00:07:38,724 --> 00:07:44,272 there are a lot of things that we'll probably get wrong along the way. 105 00:07:44,272 --> 00:07:46,328 But we do have to keep pushing that envelope. 106 00:07:46,328 --> 00:07:51,266 We do have to keep asking questions along the way. 107 00:07:51,266 --> 00:07:57,870 [SOUND] >> Thanks for watching the Treehouse show. 108 00:07:57,870 --> 00:07:59,970 To get in touch with the show, reach out to me on Twitter or 109 00:07:59,970 --> 00:08:02,440 shoot an email to show@teamtreehouse.com. 110 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:03,682 We'd love to hear from you. 111 00:08:03,682 --> 00:08:06,664 And I know I'll be on the lookout for Devin's design thinking course. 112 00:08:06,664 --> 00:08:09,739 Our team went to IBM's headquarters in Austin, Texas to shoot it. 113 00:08:09,739 --> 00:08:17,108 [MUSIC]