The Actors of Design — Rethinking the functions and roles of the contemporary designer
In 1934 a man named Walter Benjamin wrote a thought-provoking essay titled “The Author as Producer,” it concerned the changing economic patterns and technologies that served to redefine both authorship and labour at the time. Despite the political entanglement and environment in which his theory came from, Benjamin looked to the technological advancements and their impact which helped to reproduce and amplify an authors message.
Fast forward to 2018, and there are some very real similarities and universal themes which are still relevant now. Thanks to software, advancements in computer technology and of course the internet any author is still able to produce, and freely distribute their content (for now at least), they can also design, develop and market it with higher speed than ever before.
However unlike in the 1930’s we can also scale that message or product or services to customer demands and needs with more agility and velocity, and, monetise it to be more profitable than it ever could be done before.
The Author is now more than just producer, they have become something much more multidimensional — researcher, problem-solver, marketer, strategist, and now more importantly designer.
For at least the last 50 years this sentiment has been building upon Benjamin’s theory thanks to an array of technological advancements and a widespread perception fuelled by an ‘everyone is a designer and can do design’ statement from a gentleman named Herbert Simon in 1969 which was meant to give a sense of empowerment. He claimed that design is just a generalised skill embedded in all types of creating and is easily mastered.
“Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” — Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial 1969.
The comment has created a contentious point for some that either oppose that view and wish to covert it as a specific trade or those who concur with Simon’s statement and hope that by opening up the knowledge base we can empower everyone to create better futures. However, this ‘argument makes no distinction between types of design or the challenges or skills within.’ (VanPatter 2017)
As a steady stream of new people have entered the subject terrain, and old-hands decide, for one reason or another, to weigh in from various directions, arguments tend to appear, reappear and re-reappear. — GK VanPatter 2017
If you follow the satire of Tobias van Schneider’s latest article, you will see how some of the titles we give designers or they, in fact, take for themselves have become quite outrageous when methodologies such as ‘design thinking’ become job titles. Even still, if you dip your toe into the matrix and manage to sort through the tidal wave of appreciation, opinions and discussion points for and about design, it might leave you with some lingering questions in the back of the head like; what does it mean to be a designer today? They just design right?
Far too often I see this whole discussion focussing on what designers are, whereas I feel like we should concentrate on ‘what designers do’, which is where I feel like the conversation often gets misconstrued.
The subtext to some of these arguments means that management consultant types fight to own the “high fee” strategically important thinking or problem-solving part of design while leaving the “low fee” executing and tactical doing part of design to professional designers. And this is part of the “design thinking should not belong to or be led by the design community” and “designers need to be put in their place” argument by competitive disciplines or people from other ‘disciplines’ seeking to be more ‘designer’ like. (VanPatter 2017)
Humantific an innovation firm from NYC has tracked the evolution of design through what they call a ‘think shift’ and ‘skill shift’ for over a decade with their NextD research. The analysis became a way of understanding the changing landscape of design and the degree to which design skills and their application are needed to address the many contemporary challenges and problems. What Humantific has managed to do is analyse and clarify the evolution of contemporary design and how it fits into everyday practice.
During the most recent Disruptive Innovation Festival (2017) Arianna Mazzeo a leader in co-design practices from Europe made the case that ‘designers should no longer be regarded as just problem solvers, but rather as change agents who empower and facilitate.’ She argued that contemporary designers are operating in a period of transition, a shift from the value of object design towards a system of distributed meaning and learning. Meaning the value transfer and exchange of the “service” a designer provides; the skills they need to employ and subsequently their role has become far more important, critical and necessary than it ever has been before. It connects with Humantific’s viewpoint nicely because it shows how designers address the scale of complex problems.
Layer that on with the forecast by the ‘Institute For the Future’ for the 4th and next ‘industrial revolution.’ And what you will begin to see that it is not so much about being titled a ‘designer’ or who makes design decisions every day but rather the ‘design mindset’ that is becoming invaluable.
The ‘design mindset’ is posited to be one of the core skills needed for the future of work. It is to be expected by everyone, not just a select group. Meaning we will eventually think of a ‘designer’ in less isolated roles, but as a thing, many people contribute too. (Levin 2017) Which I think is why there is so much debate between non-designers who’ve discovered design thinking versus skilled designers who’ve been scrambling to remain relevant.
What further cements this concept is if you link Benjamin’s theory, connect it to Simon’s prediction to say something like Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory a well know socio-technical framework. You begin to see “designers” operating much like actor/ actants in Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, and, that designers can and will play a variety of dynamic roles within a project or problem space.
What I have come to believe the ‘everyone is a designer’ sentiment has been eluding to all this time, is the “shift” as Humantific has pointed out, in the role of the ‘designed’ and the ‘designer.’ Contemporary designers are moving and have moved beyond just playing one or two roles.
The process designers are engaged in now consists of diverse stakeholders with varying competencies as ‘actants.’ Who through their roles, in duration, help to uncover opportunities (tacit knowledge) which in turn aids in making decisions based on specific needs and values (explicit knowledge) that help to envision a solution to which they can manifest.
As Chris Marmo pointed out in his 2017 presentation titled ‘Designers are translators’ he argued that designers do translation. They do it by ‘interpreting and communicating between context, communities and organisations’, in short Marmo believes that designers translate between research, making and facilitating.
We can spend all day defining the modes of design, or we can think about designers as people that move between modes. (Chris Marmo 2017)
To extrapolate on Marmo’s point I believe designers are caught in a tension between having different functions within specific roles depending on which mode they are in, based on what the context is they are being asked to engage with — and — what tasks they need to perform to achieve that. It’s like having multiple personalities. The way I have come to explain it to people is through the visualisation of an enneagram.
It has been a novel way to show how designers potentially bounce around the roles they play and the functions they provide through changing modes (translating.) And it helps us ‘focus on the ways a designer move between modes’ and ‘thinks about the choices they make in those translations’ (Marmo 2017)
The designer as a problem solver, change agent and translator refer specifically to three significant ‘functions’ I see contemporary designers playing. These functions are about the responsibility they take that is contextualised by the purpose of their engagement in conjunction with the challenge or problem.
The designer as the maker, producer, curator, facilitator, generalist/ specialist and analyst refers to ‘roles’ they might play depending on the tasks they are required to execute within a project. What I am acknowledging here is the tangible ‘actions’ and ‘decisions’ a designer may take to perform the above ‘functions.’
I believe this tension occurs because the expectation and dynamic of what we are designing have morphed. Where now designers are being asked to design things for multiple value systems, for various customers or users types, to be more thoughtful of its lifecycle, and to have been created in tandem with a broader circle of people.
For example, you’ve been hired as a Product designer (specialist) to consult into a global FMCG brand that makes a range of drinks. They brief you and tell you their problems from the businesses perspective and dictate that they need and expect to have a new product on the shelves in 6 months to combat this problem and change the situation (change-agent.) They say you’ll need to work with and help an existing internal team made up of a brand manager, in-house designer, food scientist, regional area manager, and a marketing executive (facilitator). So off you go into research mode (analyst) with the team to try an understand the problem in context to the market, consumer/ customers changing needs and the business objectives; which will more than likely have a financial metric attached. You talk to various customers, finally after a period you and the team get a sense of some of the problems. But some of t of the team get a hunch and try to jump straight into solution mode; you have to guide them (facilitator) into holding-off and say we need to focus more on formulating the problem a little more until we can uncover a series of opportunities that we can assess. They reluctantly hold-off and you convince them your process will ensure a better result, and you explain your 5-step process. Eventually through some painstaking meetings and workshops you and the team uncover x2 real opportunities to solve the initial challenge from the research (translator.) You pull together some ideation workshops consisting of people in the business and the customer, and you all participate in coming up with a whole heap of ideas (maker) with your help conducting the workshops (facilitator.) You get to the end of these workshops, and now you have to choose which ideas have the best merit. One idea that everyone likes solves both a customer problem and one of the business problems well, but it requires a more long-term investment from the brand. The other idea solves one of the brand’s business problems relating to the production of an existing product and is easier to fix, but it ignores the fact that customers aren’t buying as much of it because it’s too unhealthy. Guess who loves this idea #2 the brand manager and the regional area manager! You debate the pros and cons but ultimately the regional area manager has the final say, and they’re going with idea #2. But, a real curve ball gets thrown at you and the team while this debate has been going on. A competitor has launched a product similar to idea#1 and its currently smashing sales — you convince the decision maker that the situation is salvageable, but you need to pivot in another direction, they want to abandon the project. You go back to the research and find something you missed and something the competitor either overlooked or completely missed too (analyst.) You sprint to run the process again but at an accelerated rate this time with fewer people involved. You and your smaller-lean team ideate and sketch together another concept (creative problem solver) and WHAM! There it is, it solves a whole bunch of problems. You present it to the business as a recommendation and lay out all the risks, and the value to the customer and the business as it changes how the drink is made, how it is mass produced but more importantly why it exists. The business says excellent work we’ll take it from here…
The real learning here is that designers need to be adaptive learners and thinkers; they require an understanding of business thinking, an understanding of the dynamics of change, systems thinking, customer behaviour, and process knowledge in many instances on top of specialist craft skills. They need to be able to conduct research activities, run workshops, possess a business acumen fit for dealing with the c-suite level leaders, they must be able to sell and educate people on their processes and all of the soft skills attached to align stakeholders.
My current standing on the value of these actant-players (designers) highlights the interplay between their “functions, roles and modes.” So by removing the filter of who coverts or ‘gates’ design in the traditional sense; the problem-solver, the maker, the producer, the facilitator, the curator, the translator, the change agent, and analyst — they become one and the same.
Which is a profoundly confronting prospect for any organisation as it echoes a neo-generalist attitude that is heavily inspired by Kenneth Mikkelsen & Richard Martin’s work. Rather than just assuming all “designers” are always going to be hyper-specialists dedicated to a specific discipline we can embrace that design in the real world is changing to be; cross-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and transdisciplinary.
I recommend reading Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer’s article on ‘Transdisciplinary Innovation and Design’
The movement between these new roles and functions marks the ‘everyone can design’ and ‘should design’ but also outlines what it means to be a designer beyond the marketing fad of “thinking” as a designer versus “design doing.”
In truth designers and design teams working on contemporary challenges and problems need an array of skills to innovate and enact change and create impact! Moreover, they need to continually learn and gain the experience of applying their methods into various problem spaces along with the rigour to be able to master those skills. In a way it is about not operating within a single, distinct domain anymore. It is beyond disciplines where you are no longer ascribed to, or produce within disciplinary boundaries. (Oxman 2016)
The reduction of a complex creative problem-solving mindset into five steps makes design seem easy when it’s not. – Natasha Jen
The exciting thing about this topic is that what a designer does, and what makes a “ designer” is being redesigned within the world everyday as the challenges we are now being faced with increases in complexity and become part of the everyday norm of business practice and society.
Designers are moving beyond just playing one or two roles. However this is a nuanced process, and that takes time and instruction to build the capacity, cognition, a common language, and skill-set. More importantly a shared understanding of design that is wider than just one or two disciplines — hint there is more to designing than experience, product or service design.
Once we begin to reframe “design”, you start to see it as being an ongoing process of both learning and expressing the new knowledge while at the same time integrating and considering emotion, cognition and behaviour. Which simple means many things naturally begin to gather under the umbrella of “design.” (Thanks, Dexter Francis for that one.)
Whether you label yourself with the title of a designer or not — the reality is, ‘designing’ has now become so much more than the design of yonder when Simon made his comment back in 1969. Though as a prediction it was not far off because designers now often find themselves ‘facilitating teams to do the design work in situations and it raises the question about whether that means they are being reduced to merely that of a facilitator- or at best- some sort of integrator? (@stefdirusso 2017)
So what’s the role of the designer again?
If I were to guess it would be to build upon Benjamin’s statement; if the Author is as a producer, then the Producer is as a designer. However, the Designer now exists as an actor; (a person who makes and performs.) As well as a facilitator; (a person who advises, directs and nurtures) and as a curator; (a person who organises, guides and arranges) and finally as a change agent; (a person who helps to develop, improve and transform.)
Author as Producer, Producer is as Designer.
Designer is an Actor, Facilitator, Curator & Change-Agent.
