Redefining the designer’s role: 6 lessons from the MCE Conference 2018 in Warsaw, Poland // Part 1
Redefining technology redefines the designer’s role
The fifth edition of the conference was about redefining technology. Technology has become something we can’t live without — redefining our lives, work and identity. It’s constantly changing: from being exclusive to becoming almost invisible now. We’re all in it together: creating digital products, coding, designing, managing.
The role of the designer is changing as well. Some people are worried that it might even disappear. The rapid adoption of design systems and automatization can be an uncomfortable reality for those who treat design as a way to practice it as a craft. On the other hand, design positions are still growing. What affects the evolution of the profession, what new skills should professionals acquire, what new roles will become the most “demanding” ones?
This topic resounded throughout the entire two days of the conference, not only in talks and lectures, but also in behind-the-scenes conversations. It is worth taking a look at it again.
Craftsmen’s era is eroding, new roles are awaiting
The time when the role of the designer was to define the primitives like colors, shapes and typography is over, argued Haylay Hughes (experience designer at Airbnb, previously design lead for IBM’s Design Language) in her convincing talk about Design Systems. For a long time, design was treated as separate mediums. We had textile designers, glass designers, furniture designers… highly specialized craftsmen. We still have them, but as Haylay notices, right now instead of designing a new record player, we try to create a better experience of listening to music. We focus on a problem, how to solve it, how to delight users. Technology is just a way to go.
In an age when the importance of Design Language Systems is discussed as often as a gluten-free diet, when “a plethora of free templates, icons, fonts, tools and low-cost software and tools are eroding the tactical aspects of design, we have to become more strategic to survive”, explains Dave Hoffer (head of design, from New Ventures McKinsey and Company)
All of those tools aim to boost an industrial productivity that enables fewer people to create the same product as before. Haylay Hughes begs the question: “what is the role of the designer in a world of design systems? When designers aren’t spending time rehashing colors and fonts, how can we anticipate and educate ourselves with new skills and frameworks needed for what’s next?”
Lesson 1 / Become a Master of Service Design anatomy
Today, because of a complexity of systems, designers have to deal with much more than one product interaction. Services have many users, many countries, many platforms. We design for many touchpoints, creating a mobile application, a website, a service in the ticket office with interior and visual design aboard and a helpline with a designed scheme of conversations with clients included. The designer’s role is to understand the whole context of a service we shape. We have to think more broadly, as we are responsible for a whole user journey, not only for five screens of one application.
Because of the interrelation of processes and systems, the designer has to be a facilitator. In her talk about travel experience, Natalie Moser (UX manager across digital channels at Eurostar) shows that one simple detail, like a well-written microcopy on a train ticket, can improve the functioning of the entire business.
What happens when I post my photos on Flicker? What about my privacy? Today, one single component carries many consequences and more new functionalities. And it is down to designers to take care of the whole structure of service “organisms” and its “parts”.
Lesson 2 / Articulating your design decision is essential
During the second day of the conference, the panel discussion about UX Career Path with Kathryn Parkes (independent UX consultant based in Dublin), Jasson Schrock (director and head of experience design at the BCG Digital Ventures) and already quoted Dave Hoffer took place. One of their conclusions was the importance of business understanding by designers. Knowledge about how a company works, about its budget and finances will be beneficial for both sides — designers and stakeholders/business developers. Understanding is one thing, but the ability to talk to business people is more important. The design process nowadays is all about co-creation and facilitating conversation between stakeholders. Being articulate is a desirable skill for a designer.
Tom Greever (director of user experience at Bitovi) wrote a whole book about the importance of articulating and defending design decisions. In his talk “Hairy Arms, Painting Ducks and Design Decisions”, he addressed designers’ lack of well-developed communication skills. Nowadays, everybody has their own opinion about designers’ work. It’s easier to criticize design than lines of developed code. The problem is that many designers still see their role “as receiving design feedback when we’re there to facilitate a conversation about a solution”. Designers are losing the opportunity to find the right arguments to defend the logic they chose. They rely too much on intuition. Drawing on the authority of other experts (authors of books, articles) can help designers justify their thoughts and defend their ideas when presenting the results of independent research. The results of user tests usually ends a difficult discussion with stakeholders. Even when they feel the solution is obvious it can be hard to explain based only on intuition or expertise alone.
“We don’t want people to fall in love with our design. We want them to fall in love with the logic and thinking behind our design”.
Tom Greever; “Hairy Arms, Painting Ducks and Design Decisions”
The truth is, the stakeholders have to be a part of the process and designers have to learn to communicate with them. The good news is that they can master this. The ability to be thoughtful about a problem and articulate any solution shows that designers have expertise in the area. When the approach sounds logical, people understand that the proposition is not a random idea. They can trust it.
Let’s stop finding new excuses and start practicing!
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About MCE
MCE 2018 took place on June 5–6 in the Palace of Culture and Science, connecting tech creators, designers, developers and managers from all around the world. It is the largest Central and Eastern European tech conference, held in Warsaw for the last five years. It is organized by a team of engineers and designers and has always been rooted in the Polish tech community, who believed that Warsaw deserves to be on the technological map of world conferences. At the beginning, it was strongly focused on engineering, yet three years ago, MCE opened its program for designers, creating an agenda filled with inspiring themes and concrete talks for UX, UI and Service Designers.
WeDigitalGarden had the pleasure to help the main organizers to enrich the design track as a part of the program committee. We couldn’t miss this event!
