Featured guru :: Lisa Leckie
Expertise: Design Research
1) Tell us what you do?
I’m a design research and strategy consultant in San Francisco. I’ve spent five of the last 15 years on my own helping clients celebrate and apply design thinking towards the creation of new products, services and brands.
My career evolved from a love of contradictory disciplines. I was a physics major my first year of college but emerged with a Fine Arts degree. I have always been drawn to the visual arts, and equally so, more analytical disciplines like engineering. Design planning is a platform for my creative and investigative curiosities.
2) What is design research, how can a person be trained for it and what makes a good design researcher?
Design research is a way of understanding how people engage with products and brands so that we can design experiences that are more relevant, rewarding and successful. For businesses, design research and strategy can create a more tuned-in view of one’s customers, a new way to see or use customer insights, and grounded ideas for improving the brand, product, service or retail experience delivered.
A good design researcher knows how to apply many different research methods (quantitative, qualitative, ethnographic) towards understanding an industry, category or consumer. But, also tends to emphasize ethnography (digital and traditional) to explore what is culturally, socially and emotionally influencing people’s perceptions, connections and relationships.
Today, there are several educational programs offering design research and strategy training. My alma mater, Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology, offers graduate programs that fuse the disciplines of design and business through intense study in design planning, user-centered design research, communications, product design, marketing, accounting, organizational behavior and strategy.
3) There has been a debate out there about the sustainability of user-centered design practice and how it could actually be stifling creativity and innovation. What is your take on that?
I simply believe it’s beneficial to consider what people care about and how they experience their world before you produce something different, better, or wildly new for them (within the context of other approaches to insight and evaluation, of course). Naturally, I feel the debate over the sustainability of user-centered design is more about how it is applied than whether it is valuable.
To move the debate forward, I’d like to see us first clarify what influences the success of user-centered design, as it’s not just a collection of tools, rather, a set of values. Similarly, it’s not just about investing more dollars into user research, but valuing human needs and aspirations in the context of meaningful design.
Some leading questions that would help clarify what these influencers are for any organization: Is the culture art or science driven (or, brand or product driven)? Do the organization’s processes make room for creativity as well as evaluation? When is proof required for innovation?
As someone who’s been hired to figure out how user-centered design is valued within organizations and create new processes and teams to support it, I know that it requires much commitment, rigor and investment to support. To see its evolution over the last decade has been so rewarding and I hope the debates and critical thinking only continue to advance, diversify and create new standards for the field.
4) Did you have any mentors? If you did, who were they? What were their advices to you?
Larry Keeley (Doblin Group) gave me the foundation I needed to pursue a career in design planning and the skills and confidence to bring strategic design thinking to any problem or industry.
Vishwa Marwah (Tattoo) taught me that inspiration comes in all forms, and that understanding the context for design is as important as the design itself.
Christopher Ireland and Davis Masten (Cheskin) taught me that brilliance didn’t need to be backbreaking, but a good idea was nothing if it wasn’t embraced or acted on.
5) Name top 3 entrepreneurs/leaders/designers that you admire the most and why.
That’s a tough question. I try to look for the best, most inspired things about everyone I meet. I don’t have idols. Instead, just try to focus on keeping an open mind, seeing things differently, and acknowledging the successes in everyone and every situation.
6) Can you suggest your favorite books?
My reading tastes are varied. I rarely read business books.
A classic I love:
- I turn to Christopher Alexander’s “Pattern Language” for inspiration about design, planning and systems thinking.
Titles on my bookshelf right now:
- “The Nightlife of Trees” is a brilliantly illustrated children’s book from Tara Publishing (India) by Durga Bai, Bhajju Shyam and Ram Singh Urveti.
- “Golden Gate Gardening” by Pam Peirce is helping me design and build an urban garden in our very small San Francisco.
- “Ad Hoc at Home” is my current bible for cooking, peace and harmony within the home. A great foundational cookbook.
7) What is the difference between good and great design?
Good design dramatically improves the experience for the user. Great design does this while inspiring others to be better designers.
8) How do you define a good leader?
A good leader inspires, motivates and sets the tone for success while clearly defining it, then relies on her team to translate those aspirations into brilliance and deliver on them in ways she couldn’t have anticipated.
9) What makes you happy?
Learning about random subjects, working with my hands, feeling a true sense of accomplishment, making the people in my life happy and spending good time with my family.
10) Can you tell us, what you are working on next?
I am slowly but surely committing more of my time to a fun new fashion business venture, but for the foreseeable future I’m happy continuing to help my clients with their design and innovation goals.
