Design agencies are doomed

Dear design agency, you need to step up your game or you will suffer a slow and brutal death. I don’t mean to scare you, but I want you to take a break and think about your future. You’ve lived a long and fruitful life, but the time has come for you to change to survive. In today’s world it’s no longer enough to build a product based on what your clients tell you and the little research you’ve done. No, you should start caring more. And I mean, a lot more.

I’ve worked for an agency my entire life and I hope you trust me when I say that things are changing. We can no longer rely on building products for fake personas. We can no longer ignore people we don’t care about. Digital is everywhere and we should be conscious of that. We used to be this group of young people building cool stuff we loved without carrying so much about the person on the other end, but we can no longer do that. As Rian Van Der Merwe says:

[…] The evidence is all around us that if there’s one thing we desperately need to build more inclusive products, it’s a more diverse workforce. It’s very hard for us to design for people and situations that we have no experience with. We need to make sure our workplaces are more diverse, and then we need to go out and understand our users.

As people working in agencies we can’t keep swiping things under the mat hoping clients won’t bother or users won’t care, because they do. And they do so deeply. Every person that touches our products is important and that’s why in-house teams are winning. Having a team working constantly on a product ensures a better understanding of both the people creating it and the people using it and makes it easier to address their needs. It helps build an empathy for everyone involved. Great products are not a result of a 3-month effort. They are a lifetime struggle.

Design agencies should offer more to their clients. We have to stop making assumptions and try and understand the users on a deeper level. But be careful to make a distinguish here. I’m not saying to go out there and ask users for solutions. We have to ask questions to understand their problems and needs to design better solutions. The same way in-house teams have the ability to perform A/B tests, analyse usage, experiment with monetisation strategies, design agencies should start offering these services to their clients. They should find new ways to provide value to their clients. This is not an option anymore. This is the norm.

As a design agency you have the responsibility to teach your clients what it takes to make great design. Clients should understand that creating products with such a level of craftsmanship takes time and costs money. Sometimes it’s not obvious why something as simple as speaking with people costs so much, but they would be grateful when they find out how much of an effect that has on their customers. They should understand that to be a successful company today you have to build a loyal fanbase. With such a diverse ecosystem it is not easy to attract users, but it’s incredibly easy to loose them. We should help clients better communicate how much they care, but not just using words. They should show it with the products we help them create.

And as if all of this pressure is not enough we have to teach users what good design is. We have a responsibility to teach a great taste in them. This is something products relying on in-house teams have realised, but design agencies are just starting to care about. We are responsible for the type of work we put out there and if we don’t do a good job, we are hurting ourselves and the industry as a whole. We have a responsibility to our peers. We have to teach them how they can approach a project once it gets through the door. We have to teach people who just start in design what a good design is and why they should care and unless we do that we would fall into the trap of mediocracy. I don’t want to see that happening.

We have to change. And unless we do, we will suffer a slow and brutal death.