On Design Evangelism – Part 1
Posted by admin on April 12, 2010In the past 5 years or so that I have been in working in the industry as a designer, I have come across numerous points that are often mentioned by Business and Technology people to Designers.While some of them understand the value of design, there are some who are yet to get familiar with it. Enlisting some of them here. You may identify a few (if not all) of them!
- Why do I need to invest in design?
- Can you tell me a problem? That I can fix and it will make my business really better?
- I need to know the value addition that design can give to my product/service?
- Have you done any similar work to our product/service, which I can look at and see how it has overall improved? as then only I can decide whether to involve a designer.
- How much do you know about the technology which we are working on? So that we can decide if you can really help us.
- Oh Usability!! is nothing but common sense and I have been in this field to know enough as to how I can improve my product.
- Oh I know exactly what I am looking for, but I would still like to know what is your point of view about how design can be utilized for improving our product/service.
- Oh you see my business is running fine, but I would still want to know how you can help us
- See I have worked on this product for last so many years and I feel this is the best product in the market and I am not even sure if you will be able to understands it as a external design person
- Oh I am sure if I get the design part right, everything will be set for having the best product/service in place
- This design thing is really more of beautification rather than anything else.
- Everything that is functional is because of the technology
etc etc.
As mentioned above you can see that there are two perspective to the above comments. One is the Business perspective (wherein they are trying to understand the Designer’s point of view) and vice versa.
The objective of this post is not to debate what is right or wrong. It is to accept and understand that we often come across these comments and questions, and we pass a judgment without understanding patiently why the other person has a certain perception. In the ideal situations I really make an effort to answer these questions, whether we are talking for the first time to the person who has asked these questions or to an experienced professional in the industry.
These situations can trigger other (often uncomfortable) reactions too. Sometimes we as designers are very quick to pass a judgment that they (the business people) don’t respect designers or the work done in the name of design. And the other times, we also at times jump to a conclusion very soon and answer anything that comes to our head immediately, as the person is not knowing much about design. We go to the extent of giving an example that is similar to what we have done previously or we give a hypothetical situation which can explain what we have to offer and expect the business to buy it.
At the same time these reactions can also come from the Business/Technology people, that they(designers) need to answer our question as soon as the meeting starts, how can this design thing be helpful as he does not understand anything about the business/technology, etc.
I find this very intriguing and I find a flaw with both these reactions. I feel that there is a great need to understand and identify how to react to such situations. Let us try to find a situation that is similar and give us different view of perceiving each side with the help of examples.
Lets look at this situation from a role play perspective:
The person who is sitting across is a ‘consumer’. The ‘product/service’ that is being sold, is Design. And, the designer therefore is the ‘salesman’ who really wants to sell this product.
I am sure many of us reading this post would related to this situation.
If it doesn’t ring a bell, let me help you recall familiar situation that you might have gone through.These examples are analogies from two day to day life incidents and it is not to say that we should change our way of thinking immediately. It is just an observation to help understand the situation better.
Example 1:
Remember the last time there was this Salesman, who came to your doorstep and was trying to sell this really cool and novel product, right outside your door and says
‘Sir! We have a product which really can help you in your kitchen’. In this case most likely our reaction is, that we are not interested, and may find it really useless to speak to this sales person. We close the door, and move on.
This is typical of a situation where the consumer does not even care to listen or understand the value addition that the salesman in trying to tell about his product. In the above example, if you were to replace the salesman with the designer and the product with the design as a service, you come across a very well known situation. This being that of product managers, and other technical leads, shooting down the services of design, without even having taken the time to understand its value addition.
Example 2:
Now, let’s take the last time you were out to buy a television in a supermarket. You look at the product and then for the salesman, who can tell you about features, benefits, etc. And if you are not sure, the salesman knows exactly what to tell you, that will make you buy the television set right away or may be in few days.
This particular case is atypical of the situation where the managers or other leads at an organization have a priori information of the value of design. The consumer here knew what they were looking for, and because the product is so common that the salesman even knows what he should sell without much of an effort.
If we analyze the above mentioned two situations, we have two contrasting yet interesting perspectives.
The first scenario shows that how one’s reaction is indifferent and one is not even ready to understand, what the product or the service is and what are the features, strength, use, benefits of the thing being sold? In the second scenario one knows what is the product one is planning to buy and even the sales person knows about what may be the situation the consumer is in. He will therefore show you the products which exactly matches the consumer’s need.
In my opinion, there are these two factors that really makes the situation a win win for both parties is the second one. The two definite characteristics that drive this, are:
- Consumer knowing the product or the service
- And the salesman understanding the situation of the consumer
What I want to imply here is that, often when we are dealing in the field of design, it’s important to make sure that the business/technology people first understand what is design and its implication. And as designer we also know what exactly is the current situation of the business/technology people, that they are dealing with, so that we can relate more with the customer. It is the call for an ecology, that enables the designers and the business/technology heads interact in a more cordial manner, by simply trying to understand both sides of the coin.
Ultimately, the onus is on both the parties. The Business/Technology people should put a little more effort in understanding what is the the value addition through design. More importantly, we as designers, need to be more inquisitive about what the current situation of the customer is. It therefore becomes our duty to educate him on our services, and give him answers that can help him identify as to what exactly is his problem and how design can help him in answering those problems.
Any effort on blindly selling the services of design, without getting an insight into the business and the technology need is a lost cause and IMO, should be avoided.
awesome! Liked your first entry… Keep it up guys
Ohh and I have a small feedback too- proof read for grammar and spellings of the content…
e.g. first para “there are some who still are get familiar with it.”
Thanks Naznin for pointing it out!
Made the changes
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Deskala, kshitiz. kshitiz said: On Design evangelism Part 1 http://bit.ly/afTGjE #designevangelism [...]
good work
[...] to 10 years of experience between us, it surprises me. My friend and co-founder of Deskala; Porus wrote an interesting article on this phenomenon, and what both the parties namely the Business and the Design team should work [...]
We see this in our day to day activities here. Designing is not just making some Page it has a lot to do with logic! A designer needs to understand in what all possible scenarios the screen or the page will be used. What will be the code or screen flow. When to show layers, what part of the design to be shown when and where in the page. All this, without giving any pain to the end user.
Beyond that they also need to understand what kind of technologies will be needed when the page will be ‘codified’. A highly user friendly page which loads in 10 second in more than 512 kbps speed will simply be a No-No. So its not about only design, A designer then needs to understand technology at a decent level. Hence the need of a “Techy Designer” with great Analytical abilities comes into consideration. Deskala servicing the same, and consisiting of right kind of people, should be a definite value add with whosoever they will work. All the best guys…
With warmest of wishes…
Shashwat
awesome! Liked your first entry… Keep it up guys
Ohh and I have a small feedback too- proof read for grammar and spellings of the content…
e.g. first para “there are some who still are get familiar with it.”
Thanks Steve.
Noted the point. And corrected the post.