Ray McCune Managing Partner

What made you want to work for Flow?

I’ve known of Flow for many years and of its reputation for being at the leading edge of interaction design. Flow was always a brand that attracted respect and admiration from design practitioners. Having the chance to build on that brand heritage and to evolve the offering, as part of the Foolproof Group, is really exciting.

We have the chance to push the boundaries of experience design practice and to help brands recognise it for what it is: an enabler of business and brand strategy.

What can design achieve?

On a human level, good design can do all sorts of things. It can inspire or motivate us to do something we might not otherwise do; it can engage us, thrill, satisfy, or even educate us; it can render something which is inherently complex, simple and easy to comprehend.

Design can save us time, help us make better choices, reduce our stress levels and in general improve the quality of our lives. Brands can achieve a great deal, and derive great value through design if they focus on achieving these human outcomes.

What is the biggest challenge in design?

Beauty parades. The typical pitch process for design briefs. It still requires agencies to go head-to-head, by presenting several creative routes to the client as a means to winning the job.

This process is deeply flawed, and not suited to designing interactive experiences matched to human needs and which deliver the intended business results.

It forces the project team to make decisions prematurely, without real insight or a deep enough understanding of the problem space in which the design solution will live. Delivering great design requires a different approach, in which insight gathering and problem solving are balanced alongside aesthetics and visual finesse.