About

What is it? 

The Design Methods Finder (DMF) is a searchable data base and method collection with quick access to a lot of interesting and potentially helpful methods when working in the areas of UX design, (customer) experience design, product management, service design, human-centered design, design thinking, marketing, or business design. When you have to solve a problem, understand the users, look for inspiration or new solutions, you can consult the DMF by using suggested tags or use the full-text search and then apply recommended methods based on your search (tags).

Origin 

The DMF was originally developed in 2010 by Valentin Fischer, Wolfram Nagel, Marcel Ottmann and Tino Weiß as part of a study project in the master program "Communication Planning and Design" at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (University of Applied Sciences) in Schwäbisch Gmünd. Since then it has won several prizes (including an ADC Award). With the relaunch in 2018 (thanks to the support of Blizz by TeamViewer), the project was completely rebuilt from scratch – revised, translated into English and supplemented with many more methods.

Content

The content of this website has been completely translated from German into English (by a non-native speaker). It is a nonprofit project that is organized and maintained during leisure time. If you find any mistakes, mistranslations or strange phrases, just send an e-mail or use the contact form on the website. You can also send us an e-mail if you want to suggest new or not yet listed methods. The DMF shall be understood as a method database, in which you can search for appropriate methods with the help of predefined specific terms and categories. 

We are not dogmatic, just recommend potentially helpful methods and other approaches that may solve an existing problem or help with the current challenge (based on the search tags). Thus we list also "methods" that some colleague would not call "design methods".

The main purpose is: Quick access to a lot of interesting and potentially helpful methods, frameworks or approaches that help solving people's problems.

We consciously link to other interesting, helpful and special and/or original sources with sometimes deeper references and explanation. Everything, of course, without guarantee. Tell us if something sounds or is not correct. This website here is an overview. 

Just use the tagging system and enjoy finding and trying out new design methods!