During the past decade, the design industry has gone through a tremendous change. First the Internet changed everything, while making parts of the industry obsolete, and then design became the golden boy of business world and vice versa. The change in the environments where the craft was applied, and not to mention the evolution of the craft itself led to the rise of several subsets. Most of these methodologies seemed to surface as a competitive advantage which then take wind to sails and blow through the whole industry— Jesse James Garrett and Adaptive Path managed to bring (and still do) User Experience to the limelight, and the industry heavyweights such as IDEO and Frog Design have quite successfully managed to ramp up strategic design, design thinking and human centric design recently. And don’t get me wrong — from a designer and entrepreneur’s point of view this is superb, finding common language and terminology is good for the whole industry in long term.
Designing…stuff.
However, this all might go a bit wrong is when good intentions become a pissing contest on ownership on terminology. You have probably already noticed that UX, Service Design, Interaction Design, Design-led Innovation and so forth have usually resulted in very similar end results. The naming and processes may vary depending on who you ask, but in the end the tools and outcomes are the same. It boils down to people doing the work: their voice and viewpoint on their craft matters the most — as it should for someone passionate about their work.
The thing is, compared to for example, business practice, design clearly has an issue with credibility. I partially blame this on the industry’s introvert tendencies on analysing “what does this X mean to us” instead of showing how by doing, not telling. Obviously, discussion as such isn’t bad but in this case the confusion that arises damages the whole industry — for more proof, see for example this particular question on Quora, amongst many others. Good threads with relevant content, which then gets drown under sometimes very different views on what question people are really answering for.
@moleitau Surely there’s something wrong with the culture though when people have to generate diagrams like that to explain the new fields.
Tom Coates
tomcoates
Making sense of it all
If you’re working in advanced, fuzzy frontend of design you’ll find soon that every project you do differs on outcome, processes and so forth. One day it might be video concept sketches, the other a prototype and finally things your extended family still likens to magic and/or dark arts. So you might ask, how does one apply same tools & methodologies to such different outcomes? The thing is, the strategic, fuzzy part of design isn’t that different no matter what the final outcome will be. I personally like the simple formulation of using empathy to looking in and out of the system we’re designing to, and then applying these findings into concepts and prototypes. The actual craft of *designing* may vary a lot per each project, but this simple insight that we, designers are there to make sense out of complex, fuzzy things. That’s all we have to do. The sense we make will manifest itself on the form it needs to: a visual system, story, concepts, prototypes and so forth.
For example, the best projects I’ve worked during the years have usually been the ones where we might have no idea what the outcome will be when we start. This requires a leap of faith from the whole team and the Client. Usually, to echo Luke Wroblewski— the first design may seem like a solution but it is usually just an early definition of the problem we are trying to solve. And until the main question itself is solved and validated, the doors should stay open. Sometimes the result can be a series of digital of physical prototypes, descriptions for IPR department, a toolkit such as IDEO’s HCD toolkit or Dan Lockton’s Design with Intent toolkit. For what it’s worth, the final product might be a roadshow of show-and-tell and that’s it. And of course, sometimes the result is a product or service concept and definition. But this varies. One things’ worth noticing — usually what happens is that the earlier designers gets involved, the better and more relevant the results will be.
Just enough is more
From a personal point of view, the reason I like interaction design is that as a craft it’s somewhat medium agnostic. I can take what I’ve learned on physical interfaces and apply it on screens or even spatial interaction if I like. It’s nicely a very non-intrusive methodology that doesn’t lock down anything unless you want to. It’s all there – the simple formulation of using empathy to looking in and out of the system we’re designing to, and then applying these findings into concepts and prototypes. The actual craft of design may vary a lot per each project, but this simple insight that you, the designer are there to make sense of the complexity surrounding your work.
There’s a great speech by Milton Glaser on what he’s learned where he states that the statement “less is more” is actually nonsense and proposes “Just enough is more” instead. I think this thought resonates quite well here. Remove the unnecessary complexity but don’t try to oversimplify for the sake of act of simplifying. Design has a huge potential to change the world, as proved by applying design thinking to societal problems at large. Let’s not spoil it by having an endless arguments of different dogmas and what they really mean. That doesn’t quite help to get the message through at all. So from now on, I’m just going to call it design, and get it over with. The future needs both design thinkers and doers, equally.
Main imageMark Jensen on Flickr. Photo originally by Matt Bidduph.
last paragraph: the T41 radio designed by Dieter Rams in 1959 for Braun. Copyright Braun. Courtesy Vitsoe.
Well said, Sami. My own experience is that the MBA-addled brain is very uncomfortable with what seem to be dark arts. That is, the design process depends on filling the brain with data and observation and context and then – really?!? – stepping back and letting your subconscious mind have a turn at the wheel. It’s comforting – it seems – to tame this process with names, charts and assurances. In the end, though, it takes trust and confidence to add just enough. (BTW, I tweeted your article – @MitchAnthony)
Great post Sami… good perspective and lots of nuggets in there.
I agree that the the whole field sometimes appears to get wrapped-up in its own introverted intellectualism. Like the more obscure it is, the more exclusive and valuable it must be to others cause nobody else can understand whats happening. For me design is simply about people… and at its simplest… can be evaluated just by looking at someone’s reaction after they interact with whatever the design catalyst might be.
Thank you, gentlemen. Much appreciated.
The exclusivity, or dark arts, is an interesting thing. Of course, the more front end of business processes one moves, the more abstract the tools and frameworks get… and may very well seem like magic (or fluff) when take out of context. But it still doesn’t make the tools or processes themselves magical. Instead it’s the people, designers and other stakeholders who make the magic happen.
I have a very little experience on older MBAs, but instead I’ve been lecturing for future master of economics -students quite a bit. And every time I’m surprised how well they adapt to abstract, design driven things such as personas, principles, journeys etc. Makes me have faith in brighter future:)
Amen! If you’re going to talk about it though, there are useful ways of doing it. Last year, amongst the usual project bla bla I saw a designer invite her (non designer) client on stage and they played out their presentation like a therapy session. The client talked about the experience, the good, the bad and the ugly – with examples of their outcomes. It was informative, honest and practical. A live project debrief we all learnt from.
Hope all is well in Hel!
Josephine