Filip Makowiecki
Topic
This workshop will challenge the rituals of benchmarking and Jacob’s Law. The typical approach of seeking design inspiration in existing, similar solutions is ineffective and results in the repetition of the same mistakes and the increasing homogenisation of digital products.
During the workshop, we will experiment with techniques for finding and constructing broadly defined analogies as a way of cross-pollinating perspectives and contexts. I will present, step by step, my own framework combining the decomposition of a problem into its constituent parts with the search for analogies at varying degrees of distance, and we will seek solutions based on my own analogy cards.
The workshop will be supplemented by a case study from completed projects and key distinctions regarding analogical thinking drawn from the literature. We will focus on a challenge in the field of information architecture and solution modelling, but we will also explore how to apply the techniques discussed in processes such as empathising with users, defining the challenge, and ideation.
Who is it for?
Experience is required in at least one UX project where the focus was on deep information architecture (i.e. at the level of the entire digital ecosystem or the whole application/website, rather than a single screen).
Facilitator
Filip Makowiecki – designer, researcher and strategic team lead at Cogision. His mission is to find the most obvious solutions to the most non-obvious problems. He has designed for five of the ten largest Polish banks and for the region’s largest insurer. Together with the team working on Delipop, a service offering robotised grocery collection points, he won the DesignWays Awards 2022 and reached the final of the international Service Design Awards 2023. In his spare time, he lectures at SWPS University (on business design and service design) and speaks at industry conferences (http://m.in, MobileTrends, WUD Warsaw, WaysConf, UserConf, POLISHOPA, Speak in_UX). He has been a judge for the WaysConf Awards since 2023. He is also an improviser and songwriter.