Everyone is (not) a designer.
Several weeks ago my friend Jared Spool tweeted this. It caused quite a stir among the design community, and from where I sit, that’s a great thing.
This got a lot of people riled up. People said things like…
“I don’t go to a restaurant, tell them to leave cilantro off my order, and call myself a chef.” (source)
and
“Participant? Collaborator? Partner? Pick anything else. Designers are craftspeople, and it needs to be a craft and have meaning.” (source)
While not exactly wrong, these people are missing the point.
Designers of all styles have put themselves on a pedestal for too long. Too many designers have wrongly perpetuated a falsehood they are the only people who know how to do things the right way, that art school trained them to solve business problems, that a beautiful UI will solve every thing. They brush off ideas and feedback from people who aren’t designers and drool over Dribbble shots of interfaces that were created for a completely different purpose than the project they are working on.
Jared is 100% correct when he says lawyers can influence the outcome of a project. I’ve seen it happen. Project Managers influence the outcome by shifting project priorities or who works on what and when, the finance team influences the outcome by determining project budgets, the sales people influence the outcome with their customer feedback, and so on.
Then recently, in an apparent response to Jared, Mr. Alan Cooper (who I don’t know personally but have great respect for) tweets this:
You could read this one of two ways, and both are true:
- Not everyone who influences the outcome is a designer by trade. Yes, but they are a participant in the design process.
- Just because someone has the title or role of “designer” doesn’t make them good at their job. Some designers (e.g. people for whom “design” is their chosen vocation) are great, some are okay, and others are just learning. Regardless of skill or knowledge, they still participate in the process and influence the outcome.
However true all of those statements are, there’s still something left on the table.
Design is a verb.
Design is the process of problem solving, of rendering intent, of creating something of value to the user, of achieving a desired outcome. It’s a collaborative process that needs to better understood buy the people who call themselves professionals*.
Designers must realize and accept that everyone involved with a project influences its outcome.
There’s more to design, and being a “designer”, than making things functional or beautiful. Being a designer means understanding the desired outcome, considering all the requirements and constraints around achieving that desired outcome, listening to all the stakeholders and their feedback, and skillfully guiding the process to that desired outcome. Sometimes this means pushing pixels on a screen, sometimes it’s fun with sticky-notes and dry-erase markers, sometimes it’s crunching numbers in a spreadsheet, and sometimes it’s a difficult discussion with the CEO. All of this leads to the desired outcome, and great designers can do it all.
It’s time designers thought less of themselves and more of the outcomes they’re hired to achieve. We’ll end up with better products and services that way. Isn’t that why we started working in design in the first place?
Ideas are easy. Execution is hard. We make it easier.
Nine Labs is a product design and strategy consultancy based in Atlanta, GA. with a focus on the intersection of Design, Business, and Technology. Whether your idea is on the back of a napkin or you need to revolutionize an established product, our collaborative processes and exercises will deliver the results you need. Find out how we can help you: https://ninelabs.com
