What Most People Misunderstand About Product Design - Sean Dekkers, Digits

Product Innovation Series with Aram Melkoumov

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When you think of design, you probably think of beauty and delight. But, that’s not really what design is about. That’s just the most overrated aspect of design. What’s the most underrated?

About Sean Dekkers
Sean Dekkers is the Head of Product Design at Digits. Throughout his career, he held many important roles including Senior Interaction Designer at Google, Senior Designer at IDEO, Associate Design Director at Mckinsey, and Principal Designer at Visa. For him, the definition of great design is talking to people, understanding their problems, and then trying to solve them.

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Who is Sean Dekkers?
02:23 | Focusing on worthy problems before brilliant ideas
03:57 | How to collect ideas using the double diamond design approach
05:28 | Having a transformational experience working at IDEO
10:38 | The design story behind Ferrari keys and creating resale revenue for Ferrari
19:48 | How many people do you need to interview to find a pattern?
21:14 | Having visions that make sense in theory but not in practice
26:58 | Being scrappy and handy when you test
29:54 | Why do companies keep making the same bad design decisions year after year?
32:08 | The discomfort big companies have around talking to customers
34:59 | The misconception about what designers do
36:59 | Product design vs. product management: what’s the difference?
38:48 | How important is the visual component of design?

QUOTES:
“I think I’d love it if people would kind of shift from focusing on ideas and solutions to going back to the problem and just want to make sure it’s a really good problem. And it’s an important problem and has an impact. And then, once you’ve all that due diligence - then you can start thinking about ideas.” [03:11]
“Unless it’s solving like a real problem, just keep it simple.” [31:36]
“Obviously beauty and delight are very important, but for me, I’d say it’s the most overrated element.” [39:37]

Follow Sean Dekkers:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-dekkers-a450815/