NextD Journal I ReReThinking Design Special Issue, April 2007
Paul J. Nini |
Beautiful Diversion
The Ohio State University, United States
I personally agree with most of the points Bruce makes in his “Are Designers the Enemy of Design?” article. 1) User-centered research, 2) open-ended/user-controlled/usercontent-supplied systems, and 3) sustainable design approaches are all incredibly important directions for the future of or field, and we would be foolish to ignore them. Of course other writers have been addressing most of these topics for years, but the fact that they’re being championed by an ally of Design in Business is for the most part very positive. The big problem that I do have is how Design is often portrayed in the Business press, of which Bruce is a significant contributor. Namely, I object to the term “Innovation” as a stand-in for “Design.” As Bruce says, it may be a more comfortable word for Business to use, but to my mind it shortchanges the much greater potential that Design can bring to the table. We should not underestimate the value of true “visual quality” that Design, at its best, provides as an added value. MySpace and YouTube are incredibly cool Web 2.0 success stories — but let’s be honest, they’re both uglier than sin and not particularly easy to use. They would be significantly better if even basic design principles were at work. In both cases we’re assaulted with a barrage of competing messages all crammed into the available space — visual “chaos,” if you will. Providing some “whitespace” (please!) would not only result in a more aesthetic experience, but would also help focus the eye on what’s truly important on the screen. The visual form would better support the intended use; form and function would actually complement each other. Unfortunately, that basic point seems lost on Business. Instead of truly embracing “Design,” there’s now a championing of “Design Thinking” — which seems to me like a “Lite” version of Design. Again, the fact that Design is entering into the equation is positive, but something’s getting lost in the translation. It’s not enough just to think like a designer — one has to be able to synthesize those thoughts into tangible results, which is what Design has always done. Unfortunately, gaining the skills to create those results takes much study and hard work, and there’s no short-cut available. Dan Saffer, a senior interaction designer for Adaptive Path, recently posted to his firm’s web-log a piece tilted “Design Schools: Please Start Teaching Design Again,” (http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/03/06/design-schools-please-startteaching-design-again/) where he challenges those of us in Design Education to not lose touch with teaching students how to function in “the messy world of prototyping, development, and manufacturing” — where ideas become reality. We in Design instinctively know that Dan’s correct, but who in Business truly understands this point? It’s important for us to not reinvent ourselves (or let others reinvent us) in a manner that causes us to forget what Design’s unique contribution has always been. Clearly change is on the horizon, but how we proceed from here must be carefully considered.
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