FieldTrip Reflections

Rachel Burnham writes: On Tuesday 4^th June, it was my pleasure and privilege to be one of the organisers for the first L&D Connect #LnDFieldTrip.   A group of 28 L&Ders, from a mix of organisations, spent the afternoon exploring The Design Museum in London and discussing & reflecting on what it said to us about design for L&D and OD.   It was great to work alongside Niki Hobson, David Hayden and Kevin Avis to make this happen and also to have the support of the wider L&D Connect community for this venture.

Here are some of my reflections on the exhibits that caught my attention – they are a bit random and I think I am still pondering on my observations and the many conversations over the course of the afternoon with other participants.

1. Purpose

One of the first exhibits that caught my eye told the well-known story of the creation of the London Tube Map and equivalent maps for metros in other cities.  

This reminded me that the London Underground map that is so familiar to many of us, is not actually an accurate geographical representation of the tube system in London – however, simplifying the map in this way made it easy to find your way around using the tube system. 

This made me think again of the importance of clarity of purpose when designing.   What we design for one purpose, may not work for another purpose. In simplifying, we may gain in some ways and lose in others. 

2.  Adding on

Sticking with signage, I loved this picture of the old style road sign, that had been added to and adapted with lots of different styles of sign.  It illustrated a display about the introduction of a national standard approach to road signage. 

This picture reminded me of how sometimes we design a programme, project, even an organisational structure and then keep adding to it and adapting it.  ‘Wouldn’t be good to include…’ ‘We could just slip this in here…’ ‘I am sure people would find this useful…’ and before you know it, it is rather a hash of confused messages and contradictory approaches.  Sometimes we need to take stock and simplify. 

3.  A nice idea!

As well as display material, there were lots of examples of different products and items.  I admired a rather stylish chair and loved the story told about it.  

It had been designed by an architect, who also designed furniture.  It was based on the idea that you could sit on it in many different ways – this appealed to me – I am always curling up on chairs and sofas with my feet under me or hanging out over the edge.  The chair was designed to be mass manufactured, but in fact that had not happened in the lifetime of the designer – it didn’t explain why and originally only handmade ones had been produced. 

I am intrigued by this story and I have been imagining all the many different ways why the chair was not mass-produced as envisaged – expense, lack of demand – perhaps it didn’t meet a real need from customers, technical challenges, a crisis of confidence in the product by the manufacturer, resistance to a radical design and so on.   I think you can see the parallels that drew me in.

4.  Rethinking the value of standardisation

One of the displays was a mock-up of a fitted kitchen that you could walk through.  Alongside, were some pictures of kitchens prior to the introduction of the fitted kitchen concept, which drew attention to how often these had surfaces at different levels, sinks that didn’t have places to stack or dry crockery and cupboards that made poor use of space.   It sounds just like the kitchen of my childhood in Chorlton which was tiny and very awkward to cook in.

The display drew attention to the value of standardisation in kitchen design which enabled fitted kitchens to be created, with their much more practical design and their capacity to be personalised.   This is what caught my attention – standardisation not as the opposite of personalisation, which is sometimes how we think of it in L&D, but as the enabler of effectiveness and personalisation. 

We sometimes focus on standardisation as being about sameness, but it is actually about being based on standards or principles or evidence about what works – it is about establishing effective ways of working.   So my kitchen sink lesson was to make me rethink the value of standardisation.

5.  Designing & empowering

Another display that caught my eye was about the design and creation of rough terrain wheelchairs for use in countries where roads and pathways often do not have paved or tarmac surfaces.  

The design focused on meeting these particular needs, but also the need for the wheelchairs to be maintained locally, so itincluded provision for training people to be able to do this. 

It got me thinking about content generation by users and about L&D’s role moving away from providing programmes to empowering users to meet their continuing needs. 

6.  The simplest solution that works

Towards the end of our time at the museum, I got to look at a display right near the start of the exhibit.  All through our time at the museum, members of our party were stood talking about and pointing to various different objects in the display and so I couldn’t get near it until the end of our time. 

The display was an array of well-designed and very familiar objects displayed from floor to ceiling – bikes, jeans, paper bags, marmite, trainers, juicers, phones and many, many more.   Looking at this display brought back so many memories and associations with the various objects.

One of the things that they had in common was a simplicity.  It reminded me that the simplest solution that meets the need is often the best solution.

The paper bag particularly caught my eye.   Paper bags are back in fashion.  At one time a plastic bag might have been considered the latest thing and something that was well-designed to meet the needs of modern shoppers.  But our criteria, for what makes a good design of bag, have changed and now we rate environmental-friendliness as important.   What makes for good design may change, if the context changes.  

7.  Collaboration

The whole exhibition focused on the relationships between three parties: users, makers and designers.  It was quite clear how important each of these was to the creation of effective designs.  Each of these parties have a contribution to make. The best design seem to draw on each. 

It is making me wonder how well designs I am involved with utilise the insights and differing expertise of all the parties and what I might do differently to enable this.

I have taken a lot from this #LnDFieldTrip experience.  It was the combination of the stimulation from the exhibition plus conversations and sharing of varying perspectives and experiences with fellow professionals that made it so effective for me.  

Thank you to everyone who took part and who supported the event.  I think we will see more #LnDFieldTrips in the future.

Rachel Burnham

9 June 2019

I help individuals and organisations to work and learn more effectively, particularly though using the tools of Sketchnoting and the curation of resources.  I make use of Sketchnoting to help people use visuals, to think, work and learn.  I help people to manage for themselves the information they need to stay up-to-date in their professional work.