Design is Meant to Empower
Design is tasked with a job; that job is to create something that looks good, works well, and solves a problem. Good design doesn't create problems; like with the little annoyances you might encounter daily – on your commute to work, or as you battle to navigate a website, or while you struggle to find the ‘skip button’ on that app. These problems are all there because the design failed to deliver an all-encompassing solution. Design powers most aspects of our daily lives, and design owes it to us to make our lives better.
Design (Verb): The planning and envisioning involved in creating something; towards a set result — Coker Oluwafemi
Empower (Verb): To give the power or means to achieve something — Collins Dictionary
OUTLINE
Why?
- Design makes things look good
One of the best parts of design is that it makes things look good; good design caters to aesthetics; everything created should look good to the people who have to use it; except in cases where unappealing design is paramount to the adoption of the design. Appeal is largely regarded as the cornerstone of any good design. Good design is endearing and great to look at, but for it to really pass the test, it also has to work well.
- Design makes things work well
There is no use in a beautiful thing that doesn’t work. Design that doesn’t work is useless. Better yet, it is mere decoration. Good design works well. It simplifies and delivers efficiently on the things that matter. It must perform to meet the target users' needs. And where it can find a need, it should strive to solve for the need.
Therefore,
- Design is problem-solving
At the heart of any design, the brief is a problem that needs to be solved. It could be solving the problem of misplaced focus by designing a time-tracking app, or solving the problem of comfortable and affordable seating as can be tackled by a furniture designer. Design deals with constraints and still goes on to deliver a working solution for a set of people. Good design looks forward and solves problems for its users. It reduces friction and improves the experience.
In practice
- How Design has improved Cokards
By making things that look good and work well, and by adopting the process of human-centered design thinking: ‘empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test’ in every area of problem-solving. We can say we practice design through and through. We make decisions and approach problem solving with collaboration in mind. We design for people; what we create ultimately gets consumed by humans — so we accept that it is very important to start the process with the end-users in mind, and when possible; with the end-users doing their part in brainstorming towards a solution.
This approach has transformed our practice and helped us create better-performing products and services for our agency and our esteemed clients.
We believe that design is meant to empower, and if design isn’t empowering its users, then that design is failing.
