There is no one, right way to design or develop anything. To a large degree, it needs to reflect the culture - especially the innovation culture - of a company.
All design is the process of making experiences.
Information design addresses the organization and presentation of data: its transformation into valuable, meaningful information.
Relationships happen in experiences.
Designers are optimistic people who are trained to be courageous about the future—and making the future happen. They aren’t always aware of the intricacies of operations and the impacts of the solutions they propose, just like entrepreneurs, but they aren’t afraid of confronting a blank piece of paper (or screen or board) and getting to work making something new.
Designers need to be more than ambassadors, they need to be fully functioning and fully aware members of strategic decision-making teams in a company.
Strategy is worthless unless you can act on it.
You need to marry the qualitative with the quantitative. It better informs us so we can decide what to do. We can't be afraid of data and analysis. We have to use that lens.
The future is created at the intersection of business, technology, design, and culture. *In the Bubble* is an insightful and delightful explanation of this nexus and of how each force affects the others. Designers often miss a great deal in their educations about the real people who will use and inhabit their work. Thackara astutely illuminates a lot of what designers don't know they're missing.
User experience is important to strategy.
Rules of Play is an exhaustive, clear, cogent, and complete resource for understanding games and game design. Salen and Zimmerman describe an encyclopedia of game design issues, techniques, and attributes. In particular, they analyze the elements that can make a game experience richer, more interesting, more emotional, more meaningful, and, ultimately, more successful. It should be the first stop you make when learning about game design.
