Hi, I'm Phnam.
Hi, I'm Mardis.
And we're the host of Future Future, where two designers talk about the future of everything.
We're in the business of turning science fiction into reality for a better future.
And today, we're going to talk about the right questions.
At Nonfiction, we've been using this series of six questions
to help us make the right decisions and innovate in the correct way.
So number one: why does this exist?
We ask this question to kind of give a big framework around whatever we're designing.
We don't want to just design another gadget.
We don't want to make something just cheaper so more people buy it.
We want to make things that really have value and impact, and really drive home a greater use.
And that use might be to the user.
It might have benefits to the planet.
It might have benefits in a way that really pushes humanity forward in a positive way.
The next question is: what are we saying?
So one of the most common problems designers fall into is when they want to say too many things.
Oh, they want this shape that they like, with this very interesting material with this very
interesting detail on top of this very interesting way of using branding.
So that's too much. You're saying too many things.
When you design a product, it should say one thing.
Maybe two.
And it should say it very, very clearly.
Someone who is not trained as a designer should understand what you are saying.
What kind of feeling should emanate from the product.
So, number three. Where does your design live?
We like to think about, you know, I live and design in the United States.
So often times my clients are in the United States, and my users.
But that doesn't mean I always design for the United States.
I have to consider different locations, different countries, and even different cultures.
How a culture interacts with a design and the experiences that they get from a design
is really, really different no matter where you're at.
And this is sort of that macro scope of looking at where your product lives.
And from a micro perspective, you have to get into people's homes.
Into their rooms. And [see] how a product interacts with them.
And really see how the product reacts or influences the feel of a room.
If you go into a room in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are a lot of colors and a lot of patterns and a lot of plants around.
You don't want something that is very clean and kind of boring.
You want something that supplements it.
When you go to a house in Scandinavia, for example,
and everything is very clean [with] straight lines and very sophisticated colors,
you don't want things with very crazy patterns (unless you want the contrast).
But you want something that really quietly sets into that environment.
When you have a small apartment in Tokyo,
you don't want a gigantic speaker that puts out a lot of bass with those crazy details all over.
You want something a little bit more constrained and beautiful in the details.
So question number four: who is it serving?
When we design products, we often design through an empathetic lens.
We're looking at the end user, and we're looking at how they interact with things.
But it's so much more than that.
The stakeholder map really reaches out to the manufacturer.
It reaches out to the brand.
It reaches out even to the people that indirectly interact with this product.
So, "who is it serving" looks so much farther than just the end user.
And this is really important.
For instance, think about the planet.
The planet is actually a stakeholder!
When we design a product, we want it to live in the market,
we want it to bring good things to people, and we do not want it to end up in a landfill for...forever, really.
But at some point, when it does, does it have an upcycling component?
Does it have a positive net impact when you do have to give it to its end of life scenario?
Question number five is, "how do we make it a reality?"
And that's something that is very important to Nonfiction
because we always try to take our crazy ideas and turn them into reality, right?
It's part of our motto.
Now, you have to understand the constraints that come with taking an idea and turning it into a reality.
You can't just go into a room and say, "oh, I have a fantastic idea. Let's make it happen."
You have to sit down and have to negotiate with technical people,
with industry leaders, with the market
and the right time to launch to make sure that what you're putting out there actually makes sense.
So one of the preconceived ideas that people have about creatives is
if you give them too many constraints that tampers with their creativity and ability to come up with great ideas.
Well, with experience, actually the opposite is happening.
If you don't give people enough constraints nothing is going to get done.
You're going to have a lot of very big ideas that are not thought down to the last detail.
And question number six: when will it make a significant impact?
So, we're designers and futurists.
We think of the future all of the time.
We're thinking really far out - ten years, twenty years.
And then what we do is, we can't design twenty years out....
Unless you're designing say, a habitat on Mars, right?
You really do have to think that far out.
But often times we have to think real far out where the trajectory of the product is going,
and the work backwards to what we've got available nowadays.
So for instance, if we're doing say, telemedicine.
We can do our temperature.
Now you're putting this data into the cloud and the temperature is going to your doctor automatically
so they can monitor your vitals.
Well, the next step after that might be an oxygen sensor, or even blood tests.
So this is farther out as we keep going through this futurecasting of what a product might be.
We have to think about, "how far out?
And when is it appropriate to employ this design either in the future or closer to the time period we're at right now?"
At Nonfiction, we go through these six essential questions to make sure that we're pushing innovation,
we're working for the future,
and for the benefit of everybody on this planet and the planet itself.
And we do this in the service of good design.
And we define good design as the perfect balance between appearance, function, and value for all.
So we invite you to try out this methodology of asking the right questions.
And leave comments in the section below and tell us how it's working for you.
Until next time, bye bye!
Bye.