Every year, the TED conference gives the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers the chance to talk about their projects, products or ideas and puts these inspiring talks online for everyone to see.

In July 2009, Tim Brown, CEO at IDEO, gave a presentation about how designers should “think big”. He talks about how they shouldn’t design for technology, but design for cultures and people. They should look at the people that will be using the object and let them participate in designing the object by getting their feedback and tips and letting them try out the prototypes.

To summarize, he says:

- there needs to be a bigger focus on the needs of humans, not technology
- prototyping needs to be done more and faster
- the design should be taken out of the hands of designers
- there should be more active participation from the community

If these 4 items can be realized, then designers will be able to handle ‘bigger questions’ and their design will have a bigger impact.

Please watch the video for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments.