Thread Intelligence Article

June 19, 2003
By Dirk Knemeyer

Design is creation in or alteration of the world to meet the needs and desires of people.

It doesn't sound very sexy, perhaps, but it's accurate. Consider different domains of design, from product to graphic to industrial to organization to database and beyond. In every case, design is the action creating or adapting the world - and product or graphic or industrial is the qualifier, clarifying what is being created or altered.

The domain of Design is really quite clear and has many decades of established success and fundamental mainstream acceptance, both in the academic and professional worlds.

So why does Design seem to be in perpetual crisis and not have a clear identity?

Marketers, Damn Marketers, and Late-Stage Differentiation

Design is in crisis for a variety of reasons, including:

1. Success and recognition breed imitation and dilution. The word Design used to have some cache, back in the heady days when Paul Rand logos dominated progressive business and the Eames' applied their genius to every possible medium. The result? Everyone wanted to be a genius or to position themselves/their product/their company in the sexy domain Design had built. Creativity! Innovation! Practical application!

The sad postscript is that, every month, I receive a sales brochure from one of those companies that runs one-day seminars on topics of dubious merit, screaming, "Learn to design a newsletter in one day!" That is how far down the slope the word has slid. If that clumsy substitution of design for layout isn't the worst form of dilution, I honestly don't know what is.



2. Lack of clear boundaries encourages confusion. Design is often associated with interior design or fashion design, two disciplines that are largely concerned with issues of aesthetics and are sometimes seen as frivolous. Unfortunately, what people do not recognize and is not enforced is that those are disciplines of style, not Design. Being that style has an even weaker domain than Design, stylists are content to adopt the title of designer and dilute the meaning of the word even more. This is exacerbated by people in different design domains executing solutions that are more style (aesthetics) than Design (multi-dimensional problem solving), thus validating the perception of Design as an aesthetic concern.



3. Designers, in general, are not good marketers. While some designers have a marvelous sense of market and brand, I have found that, as a group, designers do not generally have the proper background or perspective to self-brand. Consider our brand characteristics. We draw. We wear black. We brood. We are unapproachable and do not work well with others. The AIGA is in the process of trying to re-brand itself and the concept of Design. While we are producing beautiful materials and saying important things, my fear is that we are focused too internally and talking only to our members - and not the market. Which would be maddeningly consistent with our culture.



4. Non-designers do not respect - or perhaps understand - the domain of Design. Because of how the meaning has been obscured by intrepid marketers, or because the discipline has not defined itself clearly enough, people and organizations create new domains that are, essentially, duplicative. "The label game" is invariably motivated by something other than objective improvement, be it lack of understanding or attempt at differentiation or wanting to do something "new." If Design had a clear domain and a stable brand, there would not be an identity crisis today.

The sum total is that Design is largely commodified and seen as the discipline of making things look pretty.

Follow the Trend: User Experience

The latest, greatest flavor is user experience. Under this label a lot of interesting work and scholarship is being done. I am personally very interested in this community.

But, for the life of me, I do not understand the need for or benefit of the term itself.

Design is user experience. Everything that is designed - from graphics to products to organizations - is for people to experience. Sure, the Design industry may not consistently achieve that principle. That is why the efforts of groups like user experience are so valuable. But it does not follow that a new label is necessary to correct our behavior.

From the home page of the Designing User Experience (DUX) conference website:

"DUX2003 recognizes that design for user experience is a multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary undertaking that requires the participation of many disciplines and professionals in order to deeply understand who users are, what a quality user experience is and how to deliver and execute design that truly meets user needs and goals."

Which is, in essence, Design.

I originally assumed that user experience was essentially rooted in human computer interface, and/or designing for the web. But glancing through the topics at DUX2003 reveals a broad focus that covers the same basic ground that Design covers. Is the difference that user experience is hyper focused on the people being designed for? Has it risen up because Design generally was not "truly meet(ing) user needs and goals"? Does that gap really require a new name?

User experience is in vogue. It is new. It is edgy. Its brand is relatively pure and represents pieces from various different groups, open to all and threatening to none. It is eminently sellable to clients. It is getting attention and the work coming from the community deserves attention. These are good things. But what is the effect on our larger community of information solution providers? And what does adopting this term really solve that will benefit us all collectively in the long run?

Everything Old Becomes New Again. And Vice-Versa.

Today, Design is poorly differentiated and trying to stabilize its foundation while user experience is new and exciting and drawing attention. But where will we be in 10 years?

The word user has a terminal lifespan. With the evolution of technology and the increasing need to individualize human computer interaction (heck, human anything interaction), user is well on its way to paradigmatic obsolescence. It might seem entrenched today, but it is a question of when, not if, it is supplanted. People vested in the term user should start looking for higher ground now, because time will pass them by.

Experience is already sliding down the same slippery slope that other sexy words, like Design, once have. Our company uses experience in our positioning statement and, along with our generally trying to stay ahead of the industry, this far-forward application of the word in our own promotion keeps me very attuned to its use. It is everywhere. Our largest local newspaper is using experience as the focus tag in their self-promotional ads, and this is not a publication that typically shows much hope of creative brilliance or market sophistication.

In branding, the word experience is becoming ubiquitous. While our use of it is still ahead of the curve, the reality is that almost all large clients are well into the experience paradigm - with varying degrees of sophistication. Remember when CRM, 1-to-1 and Integrated Marketing were the wave of the future? They remain good ideas that complement and enhance Marketing - not replace it. Experience will settle into a similarly important - and complementary - relationship to Design. It clarifies, not replaces.

Design will continue to plug away and probably be in far better shape 10 years from now. Design is more important to the world now than ever, and still enjoys large academic programs and professional recognition around the world, albeit amidst a popular lack of consensus of understanding. Even though our little slice of the paradigm seems in crisis, Design is holding up quite well in other traditional domains. We just happen to be at a moment in time when the visual/graphical part of information deliverables is treated as an unqualified synonym for Design.

Building a Village

We will not be able to make things better simply by hoping for it. Here are some basic, fundamental things that - if we do them together - will enable us to clarify Design as a means to improve the stature of and opportunity for everyone who participates in Designing:

• Collaborate. The days of staking a place as tempestuous gurus and eccentric creative geniuses are over. The world is shrinking, expectations are higher than ever and the diversity and volume of information and knowledge you need to Design well demands that we reach out to each other. That model for professional success can also apply to our collective efforts to carve out an important place in the world.



• Define. Strong definitions of our domains will provide a structure that enables us to communicate and create broad understanding of who we are and what we do. This requires a mapping of the different domains within Design and even some mapping outside of Design to provide broader context. If the eventual maps and definitions are ours - not mine or yours - we will have a shared vision and framework from which to operate.



• Outward Focus. Once we have some basic consensus, we need to stop talking to ourselves and start talking to the rest of the world. What we provide has so much to offer the world: from functionality to beauty to understanding to success and beyond. There is more than enough work out there for all of us. If we can truly start communicating with the rest of the world - sharing and celebrating the Design community and each other instead of masterminding our own little place - we will make far more progress.



• Passion. Design is a powerful, beautiful thing. We use our minds to create or help create new and different things that make the world a better place. We should be passionate about this! What an exciting role, at an interesting and important time in human history. Our passion, our unabashed ownership of who we are and what we do, is a critical component to making productive change.

It is one thing to call ourselves a community and quite another to truly be a community. We need to build a village. Together.

A Strong Future

The ills of Design - from dilution to poor self-marketing and definition - will not be cured by incorporating new terms to duplicate the same domain. After all, if the terms are only trendy, they will slide back into obscurity; if they are enduring, they will eventually face the same challenges that Design is now dealing with.

What we need is focus and an acknowledgement that our consensus and collaboration will take us much further than being clever or doing our own thing. We need clear definitions of domains and consistent communication of those domains to internal and external audiences. We need to own the fact that each of us either Designs or contributes to Design - and take pride in that. How we market our companies or ourselves is our business, and we need to pursue whatever edge we can to be successful. I am, by no means, saying that we should all call ourselves Design firms and spend our precious face time with clients reinforcing these domains. But, within our communities, as we work together, we need a common language and framework. We need to build a solid, long-term base from which we can progress, collaborate and assert our vital importance to the creation of understanding and holistic success.

I'm up for it. Are you?

Author - Dirk Knemeyer
Editor - Nathan Shedroff

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