Designish: Telling the African Product Design Story
Designers have played a pivotal role in creating digital experiences and determining what digital products will look and feel like to the end users. As the digital product landscape is constantly evolving, there is a growing global demand for designers.
In the last decade, there has been a continuous rise in digitization in Africa. This rise has seen Africans not just embracing digitization, but actively engaging and creating digital tools to address some of the challenges facing the continent.
Beyond the increase in the use of social media in Africa, the last decade has seen the rise of e-commerce platforms, fintech platforms, e-health platforms, e-insurance platforms, etc. In other words, digital products have been used in meaningful ways to improve day to day experiences.
In this article, we outline the role of designers in shaping people’s experiences with digital products and how our team, Designish, plans to be a part of this.
- Create
Designing is a creative process. As designers, we spend a great amount of our time thinking of the most innovative and efficient approach to creating solutions for users, businesses and organisations. To ensure our approach is effective, understanding existing systems and guidelines is very important.
Creating bespoke designs is an iterative process that depends on a thorough understanding of design principles and frameworks. In Africa, where there isn’t a popular culture of attending design schools, most designers depend on the internet for tips and insights which inform their designs. We will be curating such tips and insights that are relevant to African designers looking to improve the quality of their craft by learning from the larger community of designers.
- Engage
Digital product design is a fairly new field on the continent. Beyond understanding existing design philosophies, our role as African designers is to engage with other designers both in and outside the continent for the purpose of knowledge-sharing and contributing to the larger conversation on digital product design. Through our Designer Spotlight series, we’ll be sharing the stories and achievements of African designers on the continent and abroad in order to create a space for both sub-communities to learn from and be inspired by each other.
- Educate
There is a growing appreciation for the role design plays in crafting a great experience for digital products, however, African designers are sometimes burdened with the responsibility of educating tech companies in the continent on the value of great design. We recognise the growing appreciation and impact of product design on the continent and are inspired to share relevant resources that make a great case for design on the continent.
- Celebrate
The decisions made in global tech companies have a direct effect on Africans who use these products on the continent. Hence, the need for Africans who can provide an African perspective in the design teams at such global tech companies cannot be overemphasized. At Designish, alongside celebrating African designers shaping the product landscape on the continent, we celebrate African designers whose unique perspectives shape the digital products developed at these global tech companies.
- Advocate
Product designers are the voice of the users within organisations developing digital products. As a result of this, we have a responsibility to advocate for the users. The role of the Digital Product Designer is becoming more challenging as there are increasing conversations on the ethical decisions designers have to make, privacy and data rights, etc. As African designers, it is our responsibility to be aware of these conversations, understand the impact of our products and advocate for the end-users on our side of the world. We’ll be engaging in these critical conversations through our articles published here on Medium.
At Designish, we recognize the role of Africans in digital product design and will be highlighting stories of African designers, sharing tools and resources as well as pushing conversations that recognize how the products we design shape the lives of people
