Jan Srutek User Experience Designer

What’s your favourite part of the design process?

It’s definitely the bit where you gain some insight and reach the “ah-ha!” moment. That’s usually after you’ve spent some time understanding the customers and the business, and immersing yourself in the problem space. And at certain point, ideas will just start popping out.

These are the beautiful moments in design. When the ideas just come.

That’s why it’s important to spend some time researching the problem, before jumping into design, to immerse yourself in the problem space and to get a deep understanding of the challenges that need tackling. That means talking to the actual customers to understand their needs, behaviours, and pain points. Plus, understanding the business; its vision and future aspirations, as well as the constraints and opportunities that technology presents. The aim is bringing it all together to design a product or service that is useful, usable, desirable, and enjoyable.

What do you believe design can achieve?

When many people think about design, they think about graphic design. The things that are immediately visible, things that are on the surface, such as the visual appeal of a given product. But actually, it’s important to see that design is much more. It’s about intentionally changing the course of action. It’s about getting from state A, to state B: the ideal future state. Design for me is about creative problem solving.

And so, anything could be designed, really. One’s breakfast could be designed, but also a multi-channel customer journey experienced through several online and offline interactions. Design can also achieve a change in people’s behaviour. By designing products and services in a certain way you can influence how people behave. It could be used to help promote environmental sustainability, for example. Therefore, design has an important role to play in the 21st century.