George Kembel doesn't talk like a typical teacher. The executive director of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University holds forth at a passionate 100 mph as he shares the latest thinking about the design process. This new methodology is all about getting designers out in the field to shadow their prospective customers, unearth their hidden needs and get them to try one prototype after another until designers get the product right. The so-called "d.school" has just embarked on its second academic year, working out of a temporary facility. Not long ago, Kembel took a few moments off to share his thoughts on design with EE Times editor at-large Rick Merritt.

EE Times: What's the new philosophy in design?

George Kembel: We're moving from design to what we call design thinking. That means taking a more human-centered approach, using a culture of prototyping and multidisciplinary teams to design not just products, but experiences. That's a shift that has a dramatic impact on everything that engineers do, business execs do, designers do and psychologists do.

EE Times: What does that mean in practice?

Kembel: In a project with Motorola, we are looking at the future of mobile communications. In a traditional engineering program you would ask, "how can we design a better cell phone?" You would start with problem solving. Teams would look at improving the antenna or adding storage capacity so you could handle songs. What we advocate is to defer the problem statement. Don't just think about designing a better cell phone, think about designing a better communications experience.

If you start from the design of a better product, you just get a better cell phone. If you start by trying to improve the experience, you get to a place that will be unexpected. That's a critical shift for design engineers. It gives them greater motivation, because they are meeting real human needs. It also gives them insights their competitors may not have.

EE Times: Give us an example.

Kembel: One of our teams went out with firefighters. They recognized that one of their biggest problems was not just the range of their radios, but scoping out information about a burning building. The team came back with ideas for sensor mesh networks, so a firefighter could effectively throw a bunch of marbles into an environment and they would report back the heat and other factors.

To do that kind of work, you need to follow the firefighters from the moment they come to the station to their trip to the emergency site and back. You look at the whole life cycle of the experience and anywhere along the way you might find an insight that would drive your design.

EE Times: So design is no longer just for engineers?

Kembel: That's another major shift in how we teach design. A lot of people think of engineering or design as the product of a sole genius. That happens. But more often, innovations don't fall neatly in any one area anymore, they fall between different disciplines. So you need the expertise of engineers, businesspeople and social scientists and so on.

When you have a team with an engineer, a designer, a business exec and social scientists, you can't expect them to get along. They have different vocabularies, values and ways of looking at problems. The design methodology is what holds the team together. When you have a disagreement, the prototyping work externalizes their assumptions and becomes a broker to help them through the process.

EE Times: What is this common process?

Kembel: We introduce students to an example process. There are phases--like an understanding phase to become an expert in the issue quickly, an observation phase where you do need-finding in a human-centered way, a prototyping and visualization phase, an implementation phase of getting the thing out the door and then an evaluation phase where you assess the effectiveness of the thing you've designed as well as your process.

You start with that as a scaffold. Each student and team should tailor the process based on their needs. As teams go through projects, they can reflect on how they work and personalize the process for their strengths and weaknesses. That's how you innovate on the process itself.

For instance, I am good at the understanding and observation phases. It's easy for me to come up with new ideas, but I personally have a hard time picking what to work on. So I need to add a step of bringing in people to help me choose which option to work on.

EE Times: What's the role of the Internet in this style of design?

Kembel: Historically, engineers designed in a vacuum and shipped something six to 12 months later--then realized what was wrong with it. With our emphasis on prototyping and end-user feedback, you take a small step and bring it right back to the people you are designing it for to get their feedback. The ability to put something live out in the world is a key part of this process.

The Internet is our ally in allowing us to come up with a quick prototype and getting it out to people, and getting quick feedback on it. The Internet is key to broad-scale prototyping.

EE Times: What's the reaction to this design philosophy?

Kembel: We are blown away by the extent the world at large is picking up on this. Multidisciplinary teaching and research is one of the biggest opportunities for Stanford. Universities are recognizing this great need and seeing that "D" [design] schools are a great laboratory to help figure this out.

Companies are also responding to this in a profound way.

EE Times: How would you grade the industry on its use of these concepts?

Kembel: We are right in the middle of this major change. I think this will be a 10-year movement that transforms how we do business.

EE Times: What's it like teaching at Stanford's "d.school" these days?

Kembel: It's like a big startup. We have raised $35 million, so we have the founding grant in place to get up and running. We have core faculty in place from business, engineering and social science schools. We have a prototype space where we are learning what kind of habitat is conducive to this kind of radical collaboration. We approach the design of the Design School in the same way we ask students to approach design. We prototype everything--the space, the classes, the curriculum. At the end of every class we debrief what worked and what didn't, and retool the class on the fly. n

George Kembel

Education:
MS in product design and BS in mechanical engineering, Stanford University, 1997 and 1994, respectively

Current position:
Executive director of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford--also called the "d.school"--since 2003

Career: Has led the conceptualization, design and development of new products and technologies for more than 10 years in both research and industry environments. Specializes in the design process, idea generation, concept development and rapid prototyping.

• Co-founded two design-centered corporations in Silicon Valley with his identical-twin brother, John Kembel: Engaje (1997-1999), a design consulting and product development company; and DoDots (1999-2001), a venture capital-funded software technology startup, where he served as CEO.

• Associate partner, Mobius Venture Capital, 2001-2002

Other pursuits:
Enjoys cooking, camping, swimming, and travels widely