Design methods (2)

The 2016 Australian census was nothing if not controversial. For those outside Australia, most of the controversy relates to whether the names and addresses of the public should be retained along with the statistical data. Previously, unless you had specified you wanted your name kept for...

Design can begin with understanding. Understanding a product or a service yes, and understanding the lives of people interacting with these products and services.

In April 2016 I had the opportunity to attend the Design & The City event in Amsterdam. It was a 4-day event with local universities, agencies and municipalities hosting talks and workshops across the city. The main conference saw a number of interesting projects presented and it was refreshing to...

With the corporate push for collaboration and co-creation, more and more business challenges are met with a response of “Let’s have a workshop!” There is always hope in this statement, a hope that the workshop will just ‘fix’ the challenge at hand.

Showing is more effective than telling. Here’s why. Being able to think and communicate visually is a core skill of our job as designers and facilitators. Communicating visually does not mean creating elaborate artworks that look like the real thing. What we practice at Meld is far simpler and...

If you’re anything like me, your starting point is perfection. But striving for perfection stops me from getting everything I know onto the page. I get hung up on how to articulate a single thought, or getting details like names, dates, and places right before moving on. I am constantly starting...

As consultants we have to quickly understand the complex interactions of people, processes and products of our clients' businesses. This '50 foot view' is something that our clients often say they've never seen before yet is of real value for sharing project and system knowledge with the wider team.