Welcome to the latest issue of The Design Loft. This is your quick jolt of creative inspiration to go with your espresso, matcha latte or whatever you take on your break.
In this issue, we’re profiling Personas — what they are and how to make them. You can access the lesson online and materials by clicking the link below. This week, everything’s free as part of our Back To School vibe. If you like this and want more of it — a whole personal toolkit — subscribe (see link below)
Now, as Mitch Joel likes to say at the start of each episode of the Six Pixels of Separation podcast, let’s get on with the show.
Elevated Ideas: Links of Interest
Some coffee-time treats to enjoy on your next break.
Are you looking for a place to start? I gave a talk on connecting evaluation and design a couple of years ago and published this piece on how (and why) they should come together.
Great learning design includes curating great content, and Mike Taylor knows both and has created the C.U.R.A.T.E.D model to help you do it better.
Beauty sells; ugly does not. Behavioural designer Simon Moore’s reflections on 20 years of practice remind us, “never have I seen someone shouting price at me as a deciding factor of change.”
Speaking of beauty, the science of awe shows how building that into your practice and routine can make a huge difference.
Dori Tunstall is a gift to the field of design. The former Dean of Design at OCADU is at the forefront of thought and methods for decolonizing design, and this talk shows why it’s important and how we can start to do it.
Matthew Strom’s history of brainstorming might convince you to try something else next time you’re looking for new (and good) ideas. His advice? Stop doing it.
Eric Stolterman’s reflections on becoming a designer might help you anticipate what it means to be an applied creator and how you can shape your design journey.
And while I’m at it, today’s book recommendation is also from Eric Stolterman (with Harold Nelson) and is The Design Way. It’s a great orientation to design + systems thinking for practitioners and scholars.
For more information about The Design Loft
Today’s Lesson: Personas
Welcome to this week’s Design Loft Lesson. Today, we will dive into one of my favourite design methods: Personas.
Personas are “evidence-informed caricatures” or fictions about people you’re interested in designing for. It’s a method that allows you to understand differences and similarities among and between groups you seek to influence with your work.
Design Method Lesson: Personas
WHAT: A means to explore current and hypothetical persons of interest; identification of population segments
HOW: Combining research on human activities with scenarios to create ‘evidence-informed’ imaginations of real people
WHY: Provides a means to envision qualities, habits, and contexts of people without specific data on those qualities
WHEN: Service and product design situations serving diverse people where research profiles are partial
Click on the following links to access the slides and watch the presentation anytime here. You can access a lesson transcript on your right when you visit the link.
Check out this link for more details on the method and its application.
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That’s it for this week’s lesson. Thanks for your attention and best wishes in creating the future you want by design!
(And speaking of creating a future we want, check out Matt Keene’s newsletter by the same name for a garden-fresh take on homeschooling and designing environments for nature, AI and humans together).