Design Means Business II
Got Design?
Design Defined
In the first Design Means Business installment, we addressed basic conflict resolution, as a team’s communications-software product can not reasonably be expected to exceed the communication abilities of the team itself. A teams ability to communicate, collaborate, and co-operate is one of the most significant determinants of end-user experience. Put another way, band members don’t always have to love each other, but to make music of interest, they have to play well together (and the same song). Now, let’s see if we know what design is, so to know if we’ve got it.
We all know the word “design,” but do we understand it, and agree its meaning? Words refer either to things or ideas, and design is an idea, so we can’t point to it and instantly agree that the word (symbol) refers to some material thing in the world. Epistemologically, it is more like equality than Bali.
More confusion comes from using design as either a noun or a verb. And the wide range of usages, both nouns and verbs, don’t help at all. So let’s start by simply acknowledging confusion about what design means, and then clarify (separate and distinguish) it.
First; dictionary definitions. Notice that design, by definition, has nothing to do with style. It is first to do with planning, and then the communication of plans. Of its noun and verb synonyms, only plan spans both tenses. Of course, plans are devised according to designs siblings (synonyms), purpose and intent. So design is, by definition, more akin to management and strategy than the communication (documentation) used to convey a plan.
Purpose, use, and design are inextricably linked. This is a key point because it distinguishes design from art. Art doesn’t need to make sense or serve a “particular purpose”. “If it doesn’t make sense it’s art,” said Andy Warhol (and he should know). Design, on the other hand, must make sense to the persons whose purposes it serves, and not for the purpose of aesthetic appeal, which is, as ever, “in the eye of the beholder” (wholly subjective). Design serves the achievement of its user’s objectives, or isn’t design (is art).
Art serves a particular purpose too. This difference is, art’s purpose is exclusively symbolic. The first works of art were expressions of “symbolic intent,” which hasn’t changed. Design’s purposes, on the other hand, are definitively utilitarian. This is the essential distinction, and it will serve us well to use it to outgrow any confusion between art and design.
The etymology of design comes to English, via French, from designare (Norman French shortly ruled England). It shares this root of designate. A synonym of designate is “assign.” Some definitions include “appoint.” In sum, to design is to to specify.
So, though most people confuse design work with its material artifacts, it is planning and strategic decision making first and foremost, and then schema to document said plans, as a secondary matter of course.
If you’re a involved in a project in a business and, or, management capacity, and you’ve had the feeling that the designer on your team is trying to make product or service decisions and affect its strategic direction, you’re right. But if you know the meaning and purposes of design, you can see that one can not be a designer and not make, or at least strive to influence, such decisions. To assume otherwise is to assume they should abdicate their role, and not serve the function for which they are educated, experienced, and hired.
In sum, the designers plan and designate (including name, label, and title tasks and objects), then document product or service schema. Given the designer’s role as one defining “how they would like something to be built or made,” is it any wonder there is often conflict between the designer’s role and that of business or management?
The best way to settle such conflicts, conflict resolution strategies aside, is to measure if the design meets whatever is defined as it’s “particular purpose”. As they saying goes, “if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Usability and user experience (not to be confused with customer satisfaction) are not exception.
For software as a service (SaaS) and web applications, its purposes are inseparable from those of the end-user it exists to facilitate. If not measured by end-user feedback, there is no way to know if the design works, and if we’ve “got design.” You might even say that design is what design does (not how it looks or feels).
Next, Passion Plays: How roles and their structure affect end-user experience.