Thanks Joshua - excellent point you’re making here. I think there are two things that Design brings to the table that are critical for any business: It can tell what kind of experience the user should have with a product/service and how EXACTLY a product should look, work & feel like so it can convey this experience. And that is actually a lot.

The only thing I noticed in my personal career is that this list of skills can get endless:

• Visual Design
• UI Design
• Concept Design & Wireframing
• Usability studies
• Field studies
• Human perception
• The human mind, thinking & decision making
• Information architecture
• Interaction Design
• Front-End Coding
• Motion design
• Copy design
• Marketing Communication
• Communication skills
• Product innovation & strategy
• Hardware Design (for physical products, actually another can of worms)
• etc.

All of these things can make or break a good product. And at the end of the day you can just be VERY good at one or two of theses things, as they’re all evolving. Anyway, just my 2cents and again - great article of yours.