Design is not Art
Design is traditionally, and in many cases even now, compared with Art, which tends to misrepresent design and make it more — “Mysterious”. This is a funny video on the mystery surrounding design practice.
While it’s true that some great artists can become exceptional designers but it’s not true — always. This is also true that designers need not be great artists.
Design is about Empathy
One of the core skills — along with the traditional skills a designer is — a designer should have is empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Here is an amazing video by Brene Brown on Empathy and this video explains the importance of Empathy.
And here is a blog post I have written few months back, about the different personas of Empathizers
User Obsession & Design Elitism
The problem with many designers is that, while doing their job, which is to empathize and advocate — and in many cases, obsess — for the “users”, they get into the trap of design elitism which tends to alienate them from very people they are solving the problem with. This is also the reason why design teams struggle to find a place among Product, Tech, Operations, and Support teams.
Empathy for “Users” is fine but what about the person whom you are working with?
One thing designers should remember is that design is irrelevant if it’s not understood or inaccessible by people, when I say people it’s not just the people they are building the product for, but also the people they are building with.
Empathy — a skill designers brag about a lot — should be there not just for the people they are building the products for but also for the people they are building the product with
It is the responsibility of the designers to make Design more accessible else it will always be a mystery and design teams will continue to struggle to find a fit.
