I have noticed a trend in the design industry over the last few years that has concerned me greatly: the introduction of more and more disciplines, and more and more vernacular. We have overcomplicated our field because we are going through an identity crisis, and as such I believe that we have significantly watered down the observable value of what we have to offer. This article is a call for simplification and adaptation of existing disciplines, rather than the invention of new fields.
For many years, UX (i.e. user experience) was a novel term. Then it became mainstream. So the cool hip thing was to call yourself a “design thinking consultant,” and introduce a few new tools that UX designers might not deploy. Because UX designers “weren’t really practicing the essence of what design could offer to business, they were just focused on digital,” this was strongly advised as a differentiation strategy and a rate-justification strategy.
Then it became en vogue to branch beyond “design thinking” to start tackling other niche fields like “organization design,” “customer experience design,” and “business design.” These niche fields, one could argue, were not a departure from design thinking, or even UX, as a discipline but rather a maturation of the field. Or, at least they could have been.
Today we have “service design,” “experience design,” “design operations,” “employee experience design,” “workplace design,” the list goes on. And, in my opinion, we are no better for it. As designers of our own field, we have become so good at reinventing ourselves that we have forgotten the value and, frankly, the power of incremental innovation. We update our websites every few months just to keep pace with the industry’s evolution, and we constantly feel dissatisfied with our own identity, our own craft.
Now don’t get me wrong. I bought into this identity crisis as much as any other designer. I studied design management in graduate school and as soon as I re-entered industry I began branding myself as a service designer. Then I became dissatisfied with the boundaries of service design and started to play with other terms like “workplace experience design,” and “employee experience design” to articulate fields of practice I was adding to my firm’s capabilities. But what I never really acknowledged, to myself, or to the world, was that at its core and essence I was still and always practicing design. So today, i’m back to practicing service design as my core competency and committed to helping that field adapt and mature, rather than off inventing yet another design discipline.
One of the first elements of service design I was trained in at SCAD is a model called “the service concept.” The service concept is a framework that was introduced in the 1980s, and is not that much unlike that of a product concept. It includes three primary components: a core service, facilitating (enabling) services, and enhancing (add-on) services. As an example, AirBnB’s core service is “lodging.” Its enabling services include things like online booking, confirmation, map integration, check-in, and check-out. These things are necessary for making the core service possible. Its add-on services are things typically provided by its hosts, which are optional; like daily breakfast service, rides to and from the airport or local outing recommendations.
When I look at the evolution of design over the years, I believe we need to apply the model of the “service concept” to our own field of practice and ask ourselves what really needs to shift. Has our core discipline really changed, i.e. are we still practicing design, but maybe with different enabling and add-on services? I think so.
In 1972, Madame. L. Amic interviewed Charles and Ray Eames on the topic “Qu’est ce que le design? (What is Design?).” Their answers are striking and really challenge the modern designer to evaluate whether we might have overcomplicated things by adding so much new language to an industry fraught with a lack of external understanding about its essence:
Q: “What is your definition of ‘Design,’ Monsieur Eames?
A: “One could describe Design as a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose.”
Q: “Does Design imply industrial manufacture?”
A: “Not necessarily.”
Q: “Is Design used to modify an old object through new techniques?”
A: “This is one kind of Design problem.”
Q: “What do you feel is the primary condition for the practice of Design and for its propagation?”
A: “A recognition of need.”
The Eames and their colleagues designed furnishings, exhibitions, films, homes, interfaces, and even new ways of working and all under the moniker of design. Their view of design was broad and encompassing, not limited solely to material manifestations and also not limited to the efforts of an individual.
Today, I feel we as designers have lost our central identity under that broad umbrella that encompasses us all. We attend industry conferences that divide us by field of practice. We sell our value as that of our specialty rather than that of our holistic field of practice. Yet, I believe that design as a whole is at such an interesting and important turning point, with corporate design functions ramping up and demanding attention in a way never before seen. It is more critical than ever when it comes to talking about our discipline that we get it right.
We need language that unites us, bridges the divides between us, and creates a place where we can all learn from one another. We need less new terminology and more simplification. If we ourselves can’t even keep up with all the terms and fields of practice, how can we expect our non-designer CEOs, customers or collaborators? And we need to work more on the umbrella of design, together, rather than staying safe in our little silos.
Reposted from a December 2017 post I published on LinkedIn.