Thoughts - Meld Studios

Reframing ‘feedback’ so that it’s not a scary thing to give

February 22, 2017 In Capability Building, Employee experience, Tools and techniques By Dominique Gagarin Comments (2)

Have you ever held onto feedback you’ve wanted to give to someone on your team because you just don’t know how to say it? Do you ever find that sometimes several moments to give the feedback pass, because you’re figuring out how to say it...

What designers can learn from ethnography

January 4, 2017 In Design, Design Learning, Thinking about design By Dominique Gagarin Comments (2)

This post will not give you methods and approaches to walk away with and apply to your work. Instead, it is a story about my experience at the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) 2016 and how it confronted how I see my role as...

2016: A year in review

December 23, 2016 In Musings, What's been happening By Steve Baty Comments (1)

We look back on 2016 as a year of contrasts: the disappointment of Brexit and the US Presidential Election juxtaposed with the birth of a child to our GM, Alison, two engagements (Dom & Laura), and the opening of our Melbourne studio. The year has taken...

The seduction of change – a reflection on the SDN conference 2016

December 1, 2016 In Design By Lena Belin Comments (1)

With this year’s theme of “Business as unusual”, SDN 2016 was sure to attract a sizeable audience, and indeed, about 700 attendees flew in to Amsterdam to learn about bringing ‘unusual’ into their organisations. Quite fittingly, the strongest theme resonating throughout the over 40 talks and workshops...

Presenting on service design in New Orleans

November 23, 2016 In Design, Presenting, Service design, Tools and techniques By Kimberley Crofts Comments (0)

Earlier this month I co-presented at the Museum Computer Network conference in New Orleans. My co-presenters were Ariana French from the Museum of Natural History in New York, and Dana Mitroff Silvers from San Francisco-based consultancy Designing Insights. The theme of this year's conference was the...

November 17, 2016 In Design Learning, The business of design, Tools and techniques By Jack Huston

The value of people ‘seeing themselves’ in the change.

Within Meld we talk a lot about the value of clients and their colleagues seeing themselves in the change. Yes, what we design has to be a reflection of the people it is designed for, their needs and desires, but the change needed to deliver...

The value of design

November 1, 2016 In Design, Presenting, Thinking about design By Janna DeVylder Comments (0)

At the recent Midwest UX conference in Louisville, Kentucky, Meld Studios Co-Founder Steve Baty delivered the closing keynote. The speech attempted to reconcile the tension designers feel between the reality of everyday design work and the potential of design to make an impact on the...

Transition Design: Design for a Brave New World

September 28, 2016 In Design, Musings, Service design, Thinking about design, Transition Design By Oliver Dykes Comments (6)

[caption id="attachment_3919" align="aligncenter" width="764"] NASA's The Blue Marble[/caption] The world today is complex. It is layered with complexity that didn't previously exist or that we didn’t previously understand. With this, the problems we face have become more complex. Sometimes referred to as wicked problems. As a...

How to get a job in service design

September 13, 2016 In Employee experience, Great Reads By Alison Sharp Comments (0)

How do I become a customer experience or service designer? Is there a particular path I should take? How transferable are my current skills? We get asked these questions a lot so have put together some tips for people wanting to work in this space....

Visual Thinking workshop (Sydney)

September 12, 2016 In Design By Dominique Gagarin Comments (0)

In our work as designers and facilitators we think and communicate visually. Over the past year we have been running series of workshops on service design and journey mapping and kept getting asked – how are you able to visualise so well? We reflected on...