Developers don’t design, right? Product Managers don’t design, right? Interviewers, focus group moderators, sales in-charges don’t design, right?
Wrong - this is where most of us fail to understand the true implications of what “design” actually entails.
Design is not fancy gradients and layouts - that is just art. Design is understanding what to do, and taking decisions - coming up with how to do it, it is a never-ending process. Good design lies hidden, and that is what needs to be unearthed for everyone, so as to understand its true potential.

The development of a product or a service is the first stage in its lifecycle, that often overlaps into subsequent stages. So it is extremely crucial that a design-centric approach be adopted to make sure that everything created is - right from the start - being done in the best interests of all people who could possibly be affected by the process. It is extremely important to notice that I didn’t use the term “users”. I would love to introduce the uninitiated, to the term “DMU” or “Decision Making Unit” that every developer and designer and marketer and product manager needs to know of.
Basically, the DMU has 5 main roles -
* The Initiator
* The Decider - almost always, also the Buyer
* The Influencer
* The User
* The Gatekeeper
Consequently it is vital to design not only for the “user” that we speak of so casually. Because as it turns out, if the experience of any of the above roles is sub par, the chances of survival for the product decreases manifold.

Moving forward, it is quintessential to make design the driver, for the freight-train, that is each existing problem that needs solving. And to that end I will be covering 5 main topics that every person, closely associated with a product/service needs to understand thoroughly. They are -
1. Phases of design for any product/service
2. Methods of design for each phase
3. All that will go right through this approach
4. What could go wrong if this is neglected
And lastly, I will follow-up with an analysis of -
5. What actually went wrong when I failed to apply this system to my work, and how the damage could have averted.

This talk is aimed to help everyone understand how design has the potential to guide your workflow from NDA’s to deployment, and even after. Through my work and research in Experience Design, I can show you how crafting something as simple as a Concept feature Lattice, at the beginning of every project and performing procedures like Kano Analysis will help you gain design direction and steer you away from dangerous traps - a common one being, developing to solve a problem we create on-spot to “just make something”, rather than designing for finding solutions to existing problems.

And all this for one common goal - to develop, to build, to solve - with a design-centric approach.