Beyond Design
It seems we’re at a pivotal moment in the design industry. As we all have a stake in ensuring the future of design and the products we create, we should take note of the trends and innovations hinting at what’s next. Tectonics are rattling the foundation of how we think about design and its impact. But isn’t that true at any moment? Digital design especially has seen several shifts in the last 20 years, moving into the relatively unknown future of designing human behaviors. In tandem the role of the “designer” has expanded to align to the ambitious products and services we create that have become ubiquitous in our customers’ lives. We are creatives, product designers, leaders, innovators — all with morphing definitions. In today’s technological landscape of speed, power, and intelligence, that constant evolution has caught up to design in an existential way. To have a real impact on humanity, we need to use this soul-searching moment to assert our intent and adapt our design approach outside of the black box. Question zero: does design matter?
Short answer: of course. It always has. Go back 100 years, 500 years, to a time when design was needed to solve problems and generate solutions. From then to now, there’s a virtuous cycle of creators providing better ways to meet people’s basic needs to survive and thrive. It is a privilege to design and it will always matter. If you listen closely, the current conversation has less to do with design itself and more to do with the complexities of scale. As the number of customers we serve scales into the billions, we still have the challenge to create for individual needs. Designers have emerged as those experts in one-to-one billion, across diverse experiences and solutions.
Five years of embedded research from McKinsey & Co shows the business value of design. It’s a force for good in contributing to more inclusive products. Tech companies have measurable design hiring goals that they are serious about meeting. Over and over, design has proven to be an invaluable partner in business, technology, and product development. Along the way that perhaps meant “traditional design” — that which is polished and finite — lost its bearing. Is a traditional approach enough to address today’s design challenges? There’s a certain sense of angst as we move into a more amorphous, infinite paradigm.
But it’s this new paradigm that gives us the opportunity to show our impact at scale beyond the black box of traditional product design. What happens when the black box becomes intelligent? When it scales to billions of people? When it goes beyond its intended usage and begins to reshape human behaviors?
Are you even thinking about your seat at the table anymore? Does it even exist? When metaphysical data drives all of our design direction, where is the seat? There are larger things at stake here; endless unknowns to define for people around the world who rely on technology every day. And rightly because of the distinct support we’ve received from business and technology partners, design is uniquely positioned to consider the human impact among the code and the bottom line. We are in fact being handed the humbling opportunity to shift perspectives at an organizational level to define the future of experience design. We just need the humility to take it on.
History has shown us great design achieved by the lone genius. Ray Eames and her chair, Massimo Vignelli and his subway map, Zaha Hadid and her poetry in motion. Design was used to solve problems through beautiful things, borne from great minds. Success was measured through sheer sustainability through time. Great design looks massively different now in the digital realm. The world is moving too fast for any impact to be felt in the classic sense. No longer measured through longevity, we’re seeing the fate of design through its immediate impact on humanity.
In this new reality, designers can’t be expected to simply “make it beautiful” anymore — something that was never simple to begin with. It’s very difficult to create beauty and capture emotional needs; an exercise in semiotics that has become increasingly convoluted in the eye of the beholder. Today, a great designer goes beyond beauty to investigate what’s responsible. Design for the sake of design is, frankly, irresponsible at scale. Human-centered design is not enough to design for humanity.
Take it from the lens of traditional product design, where understanding manufacturing is essential. Designers need to understand the materials, components, and costs to make a product and deliver it to the customer. From a coffee maker to an apple peeler to a laptop, it’s more straightforward to track and measure the value of a thing. When it sells, when it works, when it breaks — you know it. Less so in the elusive world of algorithms, freemium models, and ubiquitous computing. We’re way outside the black box.
For designers this means yet another adaptation. The challenge — and the opportunity — is to be energized by the change. We’re evolving the way we work for the better. The design industry working in tech can choose to make a pledge to work together, to share and learn in our approach design at scale. In-fighting does nothing to address the black box or ensure we’re creating equitable and responsible design. Let’s move past the question of whether design matters and ask how design affects change. Imagine all the companies that create designs for the majority of the world’s population — Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft — align on the fundamental responsibility of design. Imagine universal design that’s transparent about the scale of the experiences we create and how it affects people’s lives. Industry leaders must recognize the privilege to design and make change happen.
This isn’t about fighting to be design-led. It’s about partnering to be solution-led. A zero-sum game for the design industry equates to the same for billions of customers. Don’t just take a seat at the table, build a new one. Show what it means to understand customers, to listen, learn, and experiment, to create meaning and impact. Take up the mantle of those we serve.
Because here’s the thing about a black box — it is a well-designed echo chamber. Functional, uniform, and sound. But once you build it, you may find yourself stuck inside, admiring the sharp corners and sleek walls that classically define good design. When in fact, good design is adaptable. It’s unexpected. It opens itself up to critique and collaboration. Good design is human. It welcomes an unknown future where boxes may not even exist, and strives to remain in service to those who still need beautiful things.
Beyond Design
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