Power tools to power coding. The future of making.
When was the last time you had a great idea for an app but did not know how to make it? We are the carpenters of the digital era. We are developing and moving past analog methods of design and technology. We are actively laying the ground work for potentially thousands of years to come.
Recently Jon Wiley, lead designer at Google Search, made an interesting comment. Wiley said, “When you make things, you inherit thousands of years of expertise. But software design is just getting started.” Thousands of years ago pyramids were erected and buildings were made by hand. The builders used now primitive methods to construct beautiful structures. To this day places like the Taj Mahal impress modern builders and designers because of the complexity achieved. As time evolved the difficulty in the tasks at hand began to reduce due to advances in technology.
It is interesting to think about how right now there is a desire to teach everyone to code. I believe this is an attempt to encourage a new form of creativity. A push to populate the technology space with more and more products in order to breed innovation. At the rate we are moving though, creating is becoming inherently easier.
It no longer takes 10 lines of code to start my computer. It no longer requires cutting by hand text and images to Photoshop. In the near future it is not crazy to think that coding will be obsolete as a method of creation. The process of app development and website design could be streamlined so that literally anyone could do it. Websites like Squarespace are already making strides in that direction by making web layouts, logos and design mind-numbingly easy.
Though I am a purist and I think that learning code was one of the greatest decisions I forced myself to make, I have to counter my own opinion with a question: “When was the last time you used a manual drill?”
Naveen Raja is the head writer for Educate and Iterate, a design thinking resources website. His passion for design has allowed him to vision, scope and scale design facilitation programs for companies both large and small. Through helping various teams at IBM, Fidelity Investments, Citibank, Marriott Hotels and more he is perfecting his recipe for how to help people to achieve more by using design. He is passionate about how people, places and cultures intermix and the significance it can play on creating an experience.
