NextD Journal I ReReThinking Design Special Issue, April 2007
Beautiful Diversion
Nor have I read something about why suddenly everyone is the designer (because it can not simply be accessibility, can it?). For me, being a designer means having certain abilities, call them design abilities if you wish. It means knowing process, it means knowing myself in a situation as well as losing myself within the same. It means that I as a person have a certain mindset towards life, problems and solutions. It means taking on a holistic approach in one breath, and in the next pay mad attention to details. It means taking conscious decisions within a process and it means taking on responsibility and being optimistic. It demands of me that I know my material. I’m not sure I can follow through on all of these in any given project or situation. But can anyone tell me that I am wrong in my beliefs? EVERYBODY IS NOT THE DESIGNER I believe that anyone can have design abilities, but that person is still not a designer. I believe that anyone can participate in and benefit from the design process, but they are still not designers. Being a designer is something else. You would not call yourself a carpenter because you do some renovating at home with hammer and nails would you? It’s just not carpentering, but still you are part of the process of building your home. AS DESIGN BECOMES ACCESSIBLE, DESIGN IS EVOLVING As we are ‘living our lives in beta’ (as Bruce would put it) and constant change is around us, evolution is expected of design as well as of us. But it will not just happen, it is we that make design evolve. The option of a non-participatory design process is soon a non-option. And why should not people be invited in the process anyway? The option for survival in evolution is adaptation, we have to accept and adapt to the surrounding contexts. For me, design is about context and the adaptability. CONSTANT CHANGE, ONGOING PROCESS Evolution and constant change calls for new results, new options and new constellations with old friends (some might call it innovation or design). How do we adapt to the fact that ‘living in beta’ actually means ‘not a finished result’ or ‘still in progress’? End results and products have been part of design as we know it since a bunch of years ago. For me, it comes naturally that the new result of a design process may well be another design process. One that is specifically designed to deal with and adapt to a situation’s or client’s changing context, a process that integrates the client and the client’s customers in the creation of the ‘final’ result. We are at a point in time where not only the end result of a design process needs to be accessible, but also the process itself. People want in on it! In an engaged and participatory world, design will be about creating arenas for action, contextual action spaces that allow and encourage people to be part of the creation of things and meaning. We will still have to be concrete, but it will be an unfinished result consisting of tools and platforms that inspirits design action and result. This is not mere mental models or imaginary arenas, I mean actual solutions to problems and brands that can interact and change depending on context. An adaptive and contextual design approach will not involve a cut’n’paste process or boxed solution. It will though demand some basic human design abilities, knowledge of material and process as well as the tools to guide us. Design will be about designing design processes that generates adaptive and results. FINALLY, FINALLY, OR THE END OF RAMBLINGS In a way what I am writing here makes everybody the designer, but the designer is still the designer. Page 55 of 58