5 Tips from the designer LEGO

Worked for several years in the LEGO designer Jonathan Bree shared experiences and spoke about the importance of entertainment, plus the simple solutions and that sometimes it is better to make out everything apart and start over. Layfhaker publishes a translation of his article.

Jonathan Bree (Jonathan Bree)

British industrial designer, blogger.

1. All important elements of the user experience

designers and entrepreneurs are often still pay attention to the product, although the product - it is just one element of the user experience. Where are our people? What did they do before they started using our product? How did they know about it? What will they do after? All this, too, do not forget. Every product - a kind of service. Therefore, it should be seen as part of a user experience.

2. Do not forget about entertainment

To product a success, it must not only be functional. It must also cause an emotional response from the user, but still it has to be interesting and fun to use.

Of course, this does not mean that it is necessary only to entertain the user. But you can always find new ways to perform tasks or add some unusual items. This can greatly affect the way users will like your product or not.

3. Use not only the head but also my hands

In LEGO Jonathan always advised not to paint and build. The form and functionality of the product is much easier to understand when it becomes tangible. To do this, and it is necessary to physically embody the idea.

Prototypes made of cardboard and other materials may seem primitive compared to models created c using the product range CAD, but nothing beats testing your product live, because some of the nuances you can not see on paper or screen computer.

4. Sometimes you need to disassemble the model into parts, to find the ideal solution

Sometimes the only way to fix something - it is to disassemble everything and start over.

When something does not work, we want as much as possible to solve the problem faster. But we miss the opportunity to completely restructure our model, given the knowledge of its shortcomings, and make it even better.

5. The strength of simplicity

Just like Twitter with a limited number of characters in a message frees people from the need to compose masterpieces, the LEGO gives people the freedom to build a fast, efficient. And most importantly, it does not need to have any special talents: anyone can try and succeed. You can not somehow incorrectly folded plastic blocks or write a tweet.

When people are asked to draw something to the audience, many people simply do not dare and say that they can not paint. People this sounds complicated, and they do not even attempt to try and do not overcome the inner barrier. So easy - is power.

6. Do not be afraid to change plans

Yes, the title says that there will be five tips. But we must be prepared for the fact that sometimes you have to change plans or disrupt the usual course of action, if it does not work anymore. Starting work on something you may not know that you get a result, but that's okay. Just do not be afraid to change plans.