Where Engineering and Design Overlap
How We View the World
Engineering and design have many commonalities such as the way we see a broad set of inputs and connectivity that inform our creative solutions. Engineers have to see what came before to understand what they are doing so they can anticipate (where possible) what is to come. Similarly, designers have to look through an analogous lens when we create design patterns that support good UX and make additions or adjustments that affect a larger system, product, or user experience.
In terms of thinking broadly, Jim Jazwiecki, New York Public Radio’s Head of Engineering says that
“Engineering is creative problem solving. What are the constraints that I have to build around? Is there an elegant way to do this? Is there a way to make it central to build off of that constraint?”
Sounds familiar if you are a designer. For example, we look for ways to simplify the building blocks in our design systems so that they are reusable. In order to do so, we consider their functionality, how brand-aware they need to be, how an end-user will be affected by adding or adjusting certain elements, and if the underlying system patterns make sense. We do this even if we have to design a “simple” email collection component.
Engineers and designers are sculptors with digital tools. Apple’s Steve Jobs famously said “design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Jazwiecki gets to an artful point with
“Understand the negative space around a problem. It’s not just about this exact statement (problem). Where is the question coming from? What can we extract from this? A designer or engineer needs to extract that understanding to solve the problem.”
We need all digital disciplines working collaboratively to craft quality products.If everyone is doing their job, we should see the world like this:
Engineering & Design: Breadth and Depth
Case in point, you are working on your design system and you have identified multiple platforms that the system could live on. Design and engineering go into research and POC mode while product sets up a SWOT analysis to compare the options in a highly organized way. Product wants to help narrow in on a solution, yet at the same time, engineering and design work on creating a service blueprint to better understand connectivity to other platforms, people, and systems. Engineering looks at the code base and dependencies, and together with design, they knock around the tooling possibilities. Is there a way to create better design and development environment connectivity?
Design and development are in a flow. First, they look broadly, across systems or components in order to see the right place to solve. In doing so, they look for connectivity and patterns around a system to ensure that they do not miss any key dependencies that, if not considered, may make or break a part of the system. Teams need the space and time to explore and iterate. As Paula Scher says in the Netflix series, Abstract: The Art of Design, “You have to stay in a state of play to design. Otherwise you can’t make or do anything.”
Too many constraints can suffocate ideas. To reiterate Jazwiecki, Engineering is about creative problems solving. His team looks for smart ways to make what they build reusable, in an elegant or sometimes unconventional way.
While design and engineering are working together, product tries to provide clarity around what is doable with the given resources, keeps everyone on their toes with how the work connects back to larger goals, and uses other techniques to determine the best use of effort.
Since engineering and design are creative problem solvers, they can see problems through a similar lens, but at the same time, with the benefit of using their discipline’s unique eye.
“Some of the best projects I’ve been on have been about understanding the non engineers”
“The best possible world is when engineering and design can process together”
says Jazwiecki.
When design and engineering process information together, lean on each other for expertise, and look broadly to come to an agreement on where to focus, no one has to play catch-up. The sparks, the magical ah-ha moments and momentum can happen in unison, as a team.
Let us know what you think. Please leave comments below.
