Design Decisions and Trust

Design decisions are always made within a broad context of sustainability, politics, culture, and technology, as well as the specific needs and wants of the clients, the designers, the community, and the regulatory authorities.

Designers have an obligation to manage a process that tackles the inherent non-alignment, and through that process, build consensus.

In our experience, design decisions are only possible with the building of trust. We have been studying trust in earnest for a few years, but we have been building trust for decades.

We start by listening, researching, and discussing what’s possible.

We ask our clients to make tough decisions about their priorities, because sometimes everything is not possible within their budget, schedule, or quality expectations. We use a 9+ list of possible priorities and ask our clients to rank them.  This is one of our first consensus building exercises. We haven’t even designed anything yet!

Everyone’s favorite exercise is the “adjectives on sticky notes”. We ask each of them for words and phrases that describe what they like and dislike about what they already have, and then also what they would like to have in their new space. We organize the notes into general categories, and then have participants vote with dots. The top three or four vote-getters become the basis for design. The group responses in the post-workshop analysis afterwards are usually: “I didn’t think that anyone would agree with me. This is cool!” “I love some of the ideas that other people have suggested better than my own!”

These powerful exercises assist decision-making throughout the long process of every design project. It also builds trust.

If you want to learn more about how to build trust and make better design decisions, please reach out. Let’s connect!