NextD Journal I ReReThinking Design Special Issue, April 2007
Neal Moore |
Beautiful Diversion
Jump Associates, United States
Designers are the Facilitators of Design. Bruce Nussbaum is excited about the future of design, and so are we. In his wide travels and research, Bruce Nussbaum seems to have picked up signs that some designers (or perhaps the whole lot of them) feel threatened by the growing democratization of design. He speculates that we might grow agitated that ordinary folks all over the world are starting to impinge on our territory. I’m not sure what to make of this finding — perhaps there are some designers who are shaking in their boots now that MySpace and Threadless have gained traction. But I do know that any designer feeling threatened by Jane and John Q. Public operating design tools is worried about the wrong things. And I believe such designers are in the minority. The rest of us are celebrating. The role of designers isn’t going away. It’s way bigger than that. The reason we should celebrate is that designers care about impact. And the individual finish of one widget at one company rarely changes the world. Designing good systems for individuals to use and build from, on the other hand, has the potential to reach millions of people in a meaningful way. It requires a different set of skills than just tailoring a product or service for your own tastes and needs. The role of today’s designers should shift to something greater. People need designers to craft elegant systems that enable their participation in design. The United States of America is a wonderfully designed democracy. We have individual civil liberties and protections that allow the person on the street to own land, to invent anything and profit from their labor, and to run for president. The USA became a world power in less than 200 years. That’s pretty impressive, right? Did this situation occur at random? Absolutely not. We have the United States we have today because a small group of determined visionaries designed our democracy. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were designers of the first order. They envisioned what our nation could be and then created the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to take us there. These beautiful frameworks have enabled millions of arguably less visionary Americans to contribute their designs of enterprise, community, home life, and yes, products that improved their own lives. Does that make our nation’s founders enemies of design? Democratizing design empowers us to make more profound changes. In the same way, we’re excited about the potential for civic engagement with the practice of design. The opportunity for designers today is to conceive systems that allow people to contribute. As the general population’s design abilities become increasingly sophisticated, the demand for more powerful tools will grow, and designers will need to meet that need. Designing a great design democracy will be no easy task. Nor will it be easy to keep people involved. But the outcome, a society capable of envisioning its own greatness, is one worth fighting for. Count us in.
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