The State of Product Design in 2017

The way we design for digital experiences is outdated. The next big thing in design thinking is designing with intention and emotion.

As a designer working in NYC, I’ve noticed a few design trends over the past five to ten years that have emerged most prominently within the tech community with the rise of product design. As digital products become more ubiquitous, they begin to look more and more similar. The digital space is dominated by asexual, cookie cutter-like apps and websites that feel flat and soulless. Even if users interact with a product on a daily basis, they rarely ever get a sense of who the company is and what they stand for. The best example of this is LinkedIn — so massive, so ubiquitous, yet completely devoid of aesthetic personality. Do users feel like they understand the brand on a deeper, emotional level? Does the end product communicate the personality and beliefs of the people who built it? I would venture to say that for most people, the answer to all of these questions is a resounding no.

This widespread lack of personality in our digital products is a direct result of two concepts have dominated design thinking for the past five years.

Current Mantra: “Good Design is Invisible.”

“Invisible design” has always been a concept in the design world, but it went mainstream in 2011–2013 as a rebellion against the heavy-handed web 2.0 design aesthetics of the early 2000’s when drop shadows, beveling and unrestrained color palettes were everywhere in the form of overly-designed Flash sites. Invisible design advocates called for the stripping away of excess, stating that design should be optimized for task completion. The design community became obsessed with conversion, shortening the funnel, clicks, and success rates. In 2013, Facebook designer Julie Zhuo wrote a great article about the trend, citing Dropbox as a relevant example. But to be clear, Dropbox does not have truly invisible design in the way that we now understand the concept in 2017. Their brand is not entirely minimalist and task-based. It is fun, whimsical, and at times (*gasp!*) decorative. Their designs evoke a level of personality that is far from invisible — and these small touches are what differentiates the brand from more cut-and-dry competitors like Box.

Our understanding of “invisible design” has mutated over time to represent an approach that’s spartan, sterile, and dogmatic in practice. Designers now associate this concept to mean that if color is to be used, it has to have a specific meaning, and if there is no meaning, there should not be color. Icons and illustrations, if they are to be used (even with text!) must explain *exactly* what the concept is, no matter how intangible or complex.

Current Mantra: “Data is King.”

It’s often said that we are living in the Era of Big Data, where everything is quantifiable and measurable. At most tech companies, data drives all major and minor decisions. One only has to look at design portfolios now to see the effect of big data in design. Instead of showcasing entire experiences, designers are building portfolios full of buttons, checkboxes, and micro-animations. On one hand, big data feedback is an incredibly powerful idea — it reminds us that design is subjective, and that what we design is not always what tests well. This allows us allows us to learn, improve, and iterate on designs. On the other hand, it leads to a fragmented design approach and strips away emotion and intuition. No wonder digital experiences often feel like they lack an overarching feeling or personality. When everything is A/B tested and redesigned on the fly, we lose the holistic, creative vision and end up with a Frankenstein-like combination of independently designed components and styles.

The other interesting thing that happens as a by-product of big data is the watering-down of unique ideas and styles in exchange for designs that will appeal to the masses. Some of the most memorable brands have taken a stand to support polarizing causes or designed using unconventional colors. In an effort to appeal to the widest audiences, there are now a lot of plain, politically-correct, blue-colored apps in app stores that are mildly palatable to everyone but loved by no one. These apps are politically correct, overly tested, and bland — they aren’t compelling in any way.

2017: The dawning of a new era of product design

We are now at an inflection point: the over-optimization and stripping away of design personality is increasingly at odds with our basic human needs for meaning and authenticity. As our needs evolve, our designs must keep pace.

The way we interact with the digital world is changing.

For better or worse, most of our world is now digital. We date digitally, we get hired digitally, we shop digitally, we keep in touch digitally. The digital space has become our primary place to interact. We no longer expect to simply perform tasks with our products, we are looking to connect. People want to not only look through your product offering, they want to feel a compelling emotional connection to your brand. They want to feel as though they are communicating with a living entity.

Here are two design thoughts that can evolve our current design styles into more authentic, meaningful experiences.

New Mantra: “All Design Evokes Emotion.”

Believe it or not, even “invisible design” says something to users. In the case of Box, which is used as an example above, there is a basic design aesthetic present. Some might say that it’s “neutral” and “minimal” — the epitome of “invisible design”. In reality, even this design style conveys something. To me, their conservative use of layout, type, and generic button styles feels like an outdated 1990’s design. On a subconscious level, what this actually begins to convey is a lack of innovation. If a product is designed in a standard, flat way that feels dated and conservative, how can we expect that same company to innovate on its core product? Judging from visual styles alone, I would bet on Dropbox’s long-term success over Box solely based on their design decision making. While Dropbox’s designs are also clean and simple, the big difference is that they feel modern and approachable. This may seem inconsequential, but in reality it has big, long-term implications in the competitive space. Design inherently cannot be invisible. On some level, it always conveys something and evokes a range of emotional responses. The key is to find moments to inject personality and emotion intentionally to curate an emotional response, rather than trying to avoid it altogether.

New Mantra: “Don’t Lose Sight of the Big Picture.”

There’s a funny phenomenon currently happening in the design world, where many designers “can’t see the forest for the trees.” When we obsess over the small design details, we lose the big, cohesive picture. We’ve stopped thinking about the big-picture and the overall personality of our products in favor of focusing on smaller details and components. Not surprisingly, styles that are created before the full vision has been imagined often need to be reworked, and the end result is a mess of disjointed design styles and components that feel Frankensteined together. The only way to design a cohesive experience that feels emotionally compelling is to start in from a high-level and design a loose, unified system before diving into detailed stylesheets and component specs.

To compound this problem, since so many design changes are now made on the fly (live in the code) as a result of learnings from data, things feel even more fragmented. This practice can inadvertently strip a design of personality in an attempt to optimize for the masses. Instead of changing things live, designers and developers need to first work together to brainstorm solutions that improve the experience and maintain the integrity of design. If a unique design style is developed to communicate a specific personality, everyone at the company is responsible for protecting that style. If they don’t, that personality could become unrecognizable or nonexistent over time. This practice can be seen on Warby Parker’s digital products. The Warby Parker brand has a very clear definition of who they are, what they stand for, and how that translates to visual style. Because these fundamental decisions were made in the beginning of their brand inception, product and tech teams are able to stay focused on the bigger picture and recognize when things feel off-brand. This is a great example of functional UX & design that’s purposefully cultivated to communicate who they are as a company.

The Next Wave of Product Designers

The past five years was the era of design hyper-specialization and segmentation. Over these years, a sharp distinction has been drawn between Product Designers and Brand Designers. Typically Product Designers are highly technical and come from backgrounds in coding, UX and analytics, whereas traditional Brand Designers are highly creative and come from backgrounds in graphic design, art direction and strategy. As a result of this hyper-specialization, the last few years have been dominated by lots of beautiful, emotionally compelling brands with poor digital offerings (BlueBottle, SoulCycle, Toms ) and lots of exciting, innovative tech companies with poor, unrelatable branding (Slack, Twitter, Coinbase ).

The future of the digital design community will be hybrid Product-Brand Designers. These new hybrid designers will need to be well-versed in both digital best practices and brand strategy to stay competitive. They will need to be capable of seeing the high-level vision and big picture while also being able to roll up their sleeves and dive into design details. Proof of this trend is already starting to emerge. Popular newcomers such as Warby Parker, Everlane, Casper and AirBnB have successfully launched digital products that feel equally as innovative and tech-focused as they do approachable and compelling. These brands have ignited conversations about the future of design and will help steer us into a new era of designing with purpose.

Let’s move away from this era of cookie-cutter, minimalist apps and websites that feel soulless and devoid of personality. Let’s adopt new mantras that will help us create functional and beautiful experiences. We need to understand that what makes us unique as human beings is not that we can perform tasks, but that we can act with intention and meaning. We are moved by emotionally compelling stories, by personality, and by authenticity. We are not merely a number in a set of data, we are not looking to simply move through tasks and perform actions. Let’s start building digital experiences that celebrate our humanity and allow us to connect on a deeper, more personal level.

Thanks for Reading

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