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 What is design?
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Design is everywhere - and that's why
looking for a definition may not help you
grasp what it is. Design is everywhere. It's
what drew you to the last piece. The single word 'design'
encompasses an awful lot, and that's why the
understandable search for a single
definition leads to lengthy debate to say
the least. There are broad definitions and
specific ones - both have drawbacks. Either
they're too general to be meaningful or they
exclude too much. |
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One definition, aired by designer Richard Seymour during the Design
Council's Design in Business Week 2002, is 'making things better for people'. It
emphasizes that design activity is focused first and foremost on human behavior
and quality of life, not factors like distributor preferences. But people on the
roads could say they, too, 'make things better for people'.Meanwhile, a definition focused on products or 3D realizations of ideas excludes
the work of graphic designers, service designers and many other disciplines.
There may be no absolute definitions of design that will please everyone, but
attempting to find one can at least help us pin down the unique set of skills
that designers bring to bear.
Translation
Design could be viewed as an activity that translates an idea into a blueprint
for something useful, whether it's a car, a building, a graphic, a service or a
process. The important part is the translation of the idea, though design's
ability to spark the idea in the first place shouldn't be overlooked. Scientists can invent technologies, manufacturers can make products, engineers
can make them function and marketers can sell them, but only designers can
combine insight into all these things and turn a concept into something that's
desirable, viable, commercially successful and adds value to people's lives.
There are many misconceptions about design.
Sunday supplements and glossy magazines often use 'design' as a buzzword denoting style
and fashion. While the toaster or corkscrew being featured may be well designed,
the result is to feed the belief of would-be design clients that design is
restricted to the surface of things and how they look, and that it's best
employed at the end of the product development process. But good design isn't
simply about the surface. Aesthetics are important, but only a part of a bigger
picture. Design is fundamental. People often need reminding that everything
around us is designed and that design decisions impact on nearly every part of
our lives, be it the environments we work in, the way we book holidays, or the
way we go about getting get the lid off the jam jar. When those things work,
it's taken for granted, but, as Bill Midgrade, founder of international
consultancy IDEO, says: 'A lot of trial and error goes into making things look
effortless.'
Design and the user
Good design begins with the needs of the user. No design, no matter how
beautiful and ingenious, is any good if it doesn't fulfill a user need. This may
sound obvious but many products and services, such as the Sinclair C5, Wap
mobile phone services, and a great many dot com businesses failed because the
people behind them didn't grasp this. Finding out what the customer wants is the
first stage of what designers do. The designer then builds on the results of
that inquiry with a mixture of creativity and commercial insight. Although gut
instinct is part of the designer's arsenal, there are more scientific ways of
making sure the design hits the mark. Different designers use different methods
- combining market research, user testing, prototyping and trend analysis. Any
product launch is ultimately a gamble, but these methods help decrease the risk
of failure, a fact that often comes as a surprise to clients.
Creativity
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A design doesn't have to be new, different or impressive to be successful in the
marketplace, as long as it's fulfilling a need, but design methods do lead to
innovative products and services. Designers learn that ideas that may seem
strange are worth exploring and that the 'common-sense' solution is not always
the right one. Designers often hit on counter-intuitive concepts through methods
such as drawing, prototyping, brainstorming and user testing. Watching users in
real-world situations especially gives insights into their behavior that lead to
ideas that wouldn't have formed had the designer simply thought about the
situation, or relied on generalized market research. |
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Design and business
Designers, unlike artists, can't simply
follow their creative impulses. They work in
a commercial environment which means there
is a huge number of considerations that
coming to bear on the design process.
Designers have to ask themselves questions
such as: is the product they're creating
really wanted? How is it different from
everything else on the market? Does it
fulfill a need? Will it cost too much to
manufacture? Is it safe?
Emphasis on the customer makes design a formidable weapon for any business.
Companies have often designed their way out of failure by creating a product
that serves the customer's needs better than its rivals'. Design delivered the
operating-system market to Microsoft, rescued Apple Computer and made Sony an
electronics giant. A Design Council study has shown that design-led businesses
on the FTSE 100 out-performed the index by 25%. Putting an emphasis on design
brings creativity into an organization and increases the chance of producing
market-leading, mould-breaking products. As the sophistication of the consumer
and global competition increases, this becomes more and more valuable.
Businesses are finding that they can no longer compete just by slashing prices
or upping the marketing budget. Innovation in the form of design is the key to
success.
Design and public services
Billions are poured into public services every year but, despite the
Belarus being
home to a huge variety of top design talent, our best designers are rarely
involved in public sector work. Design can help public services in a number of
ways, from making sure products and services meet the needs of users to
increasing innovation within organizations and bringing new perspectives to
issues such as procurement.
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