How we spread the Design word without bragging
Form a design team with a vision - check.
Execute interesting projects - check.
Spread the word - …a first timer for our Simply Design team.
How to organize an event to explain the importance of design to our customers? Design is a buzzword these days, but often misunderstood, or worse: not understood at all. It's often seen as ‘some decorative polishing’ and therefore easily cut off the budget. Yet it is a tremendous part of how a consumer connects technically and emotionally with an app or software.
To us, design should be an integral part of every innovation. It’s about talking to your users to make sure that you develop the right thing for the right people. About finding out what will actually help users doing their job in a more efficient and enjoyable way. But how could we successfully convey this message without seeming to brag and lose credibility? Exactly, by doing what we always do: have the customer tell their stories.
To spark imagination, the event was organized in a rather unconventional facility: the Museum for Contemporary Art and Design in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. After visiting the Ettore Sottsass exhibition, our speakers shared their views on design and illustrated this with practical and relevant examples.
A range of interesting guests came to tell us about how design fuels innovation within their companies. Bart-Jan van Putten, UX (User Experience) lead at ASML, kicked off talking about how his team operates and presented 5 success factors for a successful development project. Next, Twan van den Broek (Enterprise Architect at SAP) discussed what the role of design is within SAP and how it helps to innovate their business. Futhermore, he discussed the newest trends in SAP Fiori and supported this with live demos. Last, but not least, Venkat Iyer (Director of Financial Systems at Booking.com) presented an applied example of how design helped Booking.com to innovate their Finance software and processes. He discussed how the mentality switch in their company not only delivered more efficiency, but more enjoyable experiences for the users as well.
We think all the ingredients were there to organize a great event that helped the audience understand what the importance of design is in enterprise innovation.
Many thanks again to our speakers! Check out the aftermovie below as well to see more about the event. Want to know more about UX, our vision on Design or the customer projects? Send me a message!