Reflection on “Design”
Seminar 1/ CMU MDes 2016 Fall
Before entering CMU design school, I had been working as a graphic designer in Tencent for several years, one of whose major responsibilities was turning wireframes into UI design. Even though Tencent was already one of the best internet companies in China, I found myself working on polishing aesthetic details everyday, while watching interaction designers arguing with product managers about details and trivia, such as a button’s position or a piece of a notification’s content. I was not satisfied with that situation. I was confused. I believed that, either for a interaction or a graphic designer, there must have been something much more important to consider than these particular details, although I was not sure about what that was at that time.
Expecting to find the answer I came here, and the study renewed my definition of design and designer every week. Right now, at the end of this semester, when I am reflecting my definition of design and interaction design, I have to mention these following key points.
1.Have a big picture in mind while delving into a particular problem.
There is no denying that most practical design and interaction design are about solving particular problems. Besides, someone would even argue that details are pivotal to value whether a piece of design good or not. But before focusing on details, we should always keep in mind that never forget to consider a problem from a higher level.
All problems exist in a certain context and background, some of them even tangle with other problems in their context and thus become wicked problems. We should never solve one problem independently, otherwise it may lead to chain effects and cause harmful results.
Moreover, having a big picture will be helpful to keep designers’ minds flexible and enable us to revisit a problem from different angles. This is critical since some problems may only be ameliorated or solved through reframing .
2.Shape technology within society and social context, not the other way around.
In the past, I was one of those who adored technology, who applauded every time for the successes of high-tech products achieved without rethinking if we defined the “success” in a right way. Just like the example of Wechat “red envelope” I mentioned in the second medium post. Even now, I have to admit that both this product and this feature were huge business successes — not only brought a great amount of profit to the company but also made some real impact on people’s daily lives. Nevertheless, causing people to spend more time on one APP while they should accompany their families (during the lunar New Year holiday) is not a good and health phenomenon.
As designers, it is our duty to question what kind of impacts these products are making? How they are changing our lives? If we have been driven by technology too far?
3.Consider what value being conveyed through design.
No matter being intended or not, designers have always been shaping the society by conveying our own sense of value. Although it may be too hard to predict outcomes every time, at least we should be aware of this power and be cautious when we are making decisions. Moreover we have to consistently test our thoughts as well as correcting them within real context and society. Otherwise, product features like “red envelope” would be valued as a representative of great product and be repeated again.
4.Balance the roles of human and machine.
Even though most people may not consider artificial intelligence as a main threaten anymore, their lives have already been influenced dramatically by machine learning nowadays. Applying of technology, such as big data, has been changing the relationships between business and people less humanity. and even the way we live our own lives .
Instead of using and trusting machine learning blindly, good design should make the process of design making visible to users, and leave choices and options for them.
5.Besides solving problems, making people aware of problems is also important.
Besides solving problems and creating innovations, reflection and question are also parts of designer’s job, in other words, responsibility. We don’t need to be futurists ourselves, but it will benefit us to criticize and optimize our design work from this point of view.
As for me, after one semester of study, not only the definition of design has been enriched and enlarged, the standard of being a qualified designer has been set to a higher level. With this long definition of design, I will have a clearer mind and direction about how to become a responsible and qualified designer.
