Dimitri Alexander - Design Strategy within Design Thinking

Life as a Design Strategist

"Design Strategist," to me, is a term that wraps up lots of different roles and responsibilities. Throughout my career, I've done plenty of work around design, research, product development, and strategy. I've worked in the field of advertising, business to business, engineering, event management, hospitality, marketing, retail, and telecommunications, all of which have enhanced my design strategist role. Before we define a design strategist, we should first determine what design strategy is?

Design strategy refers to putting together an integrated plan that examines the relationships between how business, experience, and technology work together to achieve a specific business objective or goal. As a design strategist, you go through an in-depth process of learning and discovery to acquire a deep understanding of a client's industry, competitors, and goals. You seek hidden opportunities that allow fellow designers to formulate a strategic and executable design.

As a human-centered design strategist, I believe in asking many questions to determine what is desirability? What is feasibility? and what is viability? I make sure to make clear who is the audience we trying to reach? What is it we trying to accomplish? And what are our measurements of success? I continuously ask, does it makes sense for the customer and business? This approach can help anyone differentiate their clients from their competition. I have found throughout my career that an effective design strategy can affect many aspects of a business, from advertising and marketing to employees and product design. A useful strategic approach is understandable and straightforward. A successful design strategy has comprehensible terms that the intended audience will understand and can easily be communicated.

My goal as a design strategist is to help develop easy to use products, better services, and intelligent systems that enhance the way people work, play, and think.