What should the role of the designer be in today’s times
of complexity, unsurity, and frequent change? What is Strategic Design, and
how can it empower the designer beyond traditional practice? Are designers a
group of technicians and artists who produce products and artefacts for short
contracts? How can they fulfill more essential roles of big picture projects?
Designers are often set into roles of minor problem solving and yet their
training and expertise allows for a wider set of potential influence. Strategic
Design thinking suggest that if designers could communicate and employ their
skills more effectively, they can position themselves in order to influence a
bigger picture.
How can strategic design thinking
produce innovative projects that affect big picture issues?
Such are some of the
questions the Helsinki Design Lab, a design research
initiative funded by the Finnish government, posed throughout its advocacy for
Strategic Design Thinking. The ambition of this research group was to identify
and codify the design strategies and vocabulary developed within innovative
case studies. Each of studies dealt with complex conditions, as many important
issues today are entrenched in systems and networks of several intersecting
elements. The intent of this article is to investigate how Strategic Design
might be applied to the design and development interests of the freelance Toptal community.
Strategic Design
requires a certain vocabulary in order to communicate the values of the design
practice. Much of these values have to do with becoming involved in the
background and organization of projects, rather than the forming of the
product, or outcome. Any successfully designed project, whether its an
interface, building, or luxury car, is really a product of all of the
underlying systems behind its making. This means the bureaucratic context,the
financing, the company history, et cetera.
Often the success of any design product is really a representation of
the underlying organization.
The vocabulary
describes the specific skills of designers that enable the practice to affect
projects in such a way that no other field can. The vocabulary can be condensed
into the four categories which will be defined in this article:
●
Stewardship
●
Vehicles of Change
●
Glue
●
Legibility
This synopsis of
Strategic Design Thinking is presented as a vocabulary rather than set of
tools, as there is no 10 step guide on how to be a good designer. Instead, how
can designers understand their skillset, and employ it in such a way that can
transcend traditional practice. Not there is anything wrong with simply
producing minor products, but the designer who can influence big picture issues
is invaluable. This thinking may apply to visual designers, as well as interactive
designers, or developers .
There is no 10 step guide on how to be
a good designer.
Although the
Strategic Design initiative focuses largely on social issues and public
projects, there were also case studies of businesses that showed major benefit
from certain strategies. Some of the case studies which designers produced solutions
for were: the transformation of the UK government digital services, a 90 day
plan for the reconstruction of a flood devastated Constitucion City and all of
its social infrastructures, or the forming of a new Danish business registry.
Since Strategic
Design largely considers a social moral obligations of designers to produce
products for a greater good, it may not seem to apply in the context of a
freelance design blog. Yet, much of the understanding of Strategic Design
Thinking questions how designers can produce, or communicate greater value as a
professional. Thus, more value could mean generating productivity for a client,
solving a social issue, or generating cultural value.
Strategic Design could apply to the
freelancer designer as a way to offer value to their clients in a way no other
designers may be able to.
What is the Difference between Strategic and Traditional
Design?
Strategic Design
Thinking is critical of the traditional methods of design that focus on the
crafting of products and solutions to problems without investigating the
surrounding conditions or context of a project. Often designers may find
themselves crafting the details of a project that has a flawed basis, or is
known to have little effect in a bigger picture. It is only through the process
of the project that the designer begins to see the progression of decisions
that led to a position where all that can be done is to apply lipstick to the
pig.
This is a result of
how designers are often trained in the technicalities of how to solve problems,
rather than how to question and understand the basis of the problem and
questions being asked. As well, designers are also not paid to question the
brief of a client, or enact the necessary investigation, but only to produce
the product that is being requested.
There are rarely opportunities for
designers to question the briefs of their contracts - yet it can be the most
critical point of a project.
Generally, the
designer client relationship involves the solicitation of the designer to
produce as outcome. There is little opportunity for the designer to really
question if the outcome is right for the circumstance, as well as ensure that
the designer be paid at the end of the day. There is an anecdote of an
architect who was hired to redesign a congested school. Rather than proposing a
building, he reordered the schedule of the bell, and staggered the dismissal of
classes. He saved the school millions of dollars. This suggests a potential
paradox of criticizing a project brief in such a way, as the architect likely
was unable to log very many hours. That being said, shouldn’t it be the duty of
the designer to offer the truly honest solution, especially if it means
avoiding the cost of an entire building?
Now all of this is
not to suggest that a designer shouldn’t understand how to produce the outcome
and the necessary crafting of the details, but that the designer must
understand how to design at multiple scales. Or understand how the outcome will
affect multiple scales. The success of Apple under the guidance of Steve Jobs
and Johnathan Ives is a perfect example. The duo was able to understand how
minor details, such as the sound a button makes when pressed, communicates an
overarching concept representing the qualities of the brand.
Thus, in order to
specifically implement Strategic Design the proper vocabulary must be in place.
The four sets of skills for the strategic designer to communicate are:
●
Stewardship
●
Vehicles of Change
●
Glue
●
Legibility
Stewardship
The idea is hardly the beginning.
Often the conception
of a brilliant idea for a project is the easy part. The majority of the work
comes from understanding how to actually go about producing an outcome. Specific
vocabulary is essential for the strategic designer communicating the value of
their work, therefore stewardship is specifically in place of such words as
‘execute’ or ‘implement’, which suggest simple step by step processes in the
production of a project. The strategic designer must see a difference between
the design of the product and its delivery into the world. The designer should
the process of carrying the project through to reality as an opportunity to
extend their value. Designers are not just the craftsmen of products, but
stewards to ensure the performance of the project.
The steward accepts
the conditions of reality, and leads their client with surety that things
inevitably change for better for worse, as their project will endure and be
better for the change. The traditional designer may expect their product to
work beautifully in the vacuum of a testing platform, but will ultimately be
unprepared for unexpected obstacles, or new constraints on the path to
realisation. The strategic designer’s ability to confidently pivot in times of
flux or uncertainty will not only avoid the potential collapse of a project,
but potentially open new design opportunities and outcomes.
Glue
If composer writes a piece, and the
violinist plays it, what is the 'music' of the conductor?
Almost any project
will have a whole series of competing values, potential outcomes, and skilled
contributors that must all be coordinated together in order to form a cohesive
vision for a project. Often the client, or other contributors do not have the
time or interest to investigate and understand the layers of a project, or the
potential values of all of the minor outcomes of a project. Historically, most
often client see projects from the single point of view of money. Today however,
the contexts of decisions and their respective outcomes have too much bearing
on social or ecological impacts that underlying factors cannot be ignored.
Designers however are very accustomed to the necessary balancing acts required
to negotiate budgets, platform constraints, aesthetics and performance. The
designer must act as the ‘glue’ necessary to bind the separate elements in
order to deliver a collective vision.
The notion of role
of the glue might be also be analogous to the role of a conductor in the
symphony. Some may ask, what is the ‘music’ or ability of the conductor
compared to the skilled musicians or the composer of a piece. Yet it is the
duty of the conductor to understand the technicalities of playing the violin,
as well as the intent of the composer in order to bind the two elements in
order to produce the magic of the symphony. Often the designer does not
necessarily need to perform as the skilled technician, but instead the curator
who can see the values of all the constraints, conditions, contributors and
outcomes.
One of the Helsinki Design Lab case studies was
the improvement of user experience for the Danish business registry,
successfully resulting in saved money and time without entirely overhauling the
infrastructure set in place. Although the obvious outcome for a casual observer
is the project increased efficiency, there were several small outcomes that the
designers curated in order to produce even greater change beyond the brief.
During the initial
studies of the problem at hand, the contracted designersMind Lab produced several hour long audio recordings of
their interviews of studied users. The recorded negative experience of users were
then edited down into snippets of a couple minutes, which were just enough to
convey an emotional understand of the issues at hand. These files were so
versatile that they could be played in meetings, design charrettes, or
workshops always to great effect. The recordings have since gone on to provide
a useful archival tool for future similar projects. Now, this outcome seems
minor to the client who sees in the end a smoothly running service.
Yet this
supplementary outcome was an essential tool and will provide future benefits.
This is the result of the designer’s ability to curate the quality of the
content at a minute level, while understand the potential of the big picture
implementation of the outcome within the context of the complicated project.
Vehicles for Change
Quite often the
vision of a project aspires beyond the resulting product for the strategic
designer. This is not to say that the artefact is unimportant, but that it acts
as a hook for more strategic outcomes than itself. In Dan Hill’s book for Strelka Press, “Trojan Horses and
Dark Matter”, he identifies the Strategic Design outcomes for the Low2No
architecture project that the Finnish innovation consultancy Sitra worked on.
Essentially, the Low2No building is a project that aspires to produce
strategic design outcomes which may be replicated in the future following its
completion in order to extend the impact of the project beyond itself. In
summary, the building project requires several changes to policies and
infrastructures that are so entrenched that they required significant
incentives. Some of these potential desired outcomes were the intent to provide
new futures for the Finnish timber industry, the development of new tenancy
models, the construction of communal environments, and implementation of
‘smart’ city services.
The ambition was to
use this first building as a model for hopefully repeatable outcomes in the
future. However, these outcomes hinged on the ability to make the building out
of timber, which conflicted with existing fire codes. These fire codes would be
difficult to change without the real pressure of the project at hand. The
recent develop of new timber technology made these codes obsolete however, thus
the codes were changed under the pressure of the project and the building was
carried forward. Although the matter was a construction detail which would
often be critical for most building projects, it in fact allowed for a much
bigger project to unfold. Therefore, despite the importance of the design
thinking required to carry out the tangible first building, the strategic
design thinking formed a greater approach which will create a much wider
network of systemic change in Finnish construction.
Now, this case study
may seem difficult to apply to most freelancing web developers/designers who
would prefer to carry out simple contracts, or doubt that their clients would
be interested in hearing the designer’s desire to implement more general social
change. Yet, consider that your clients may have the same underlying
constraints or ambitions that require a strategically implemented Trojan Horse
to undertake. How can a website be representative of a wider organizational
culture within a company?
Legibility
What is the benefit
of innovative practice if no one can follow its lead? Once a successful project
is implemented, how might its development be communicated to the world, such
that its impact can continue to grow? For the projects that are carried out
within complex contexts, how can the deep understandings of a background be
translated to future contexts?
Perhaps through the
forming of educational precedents, can the value of the designer continue to be
reinforced. If the complexity of an undertaking, as well as its systemic effect
is made clear, the skillset of the designer will be further understood by
future adopters or clients. As well, perhaps the designer will be able to
re-apply their own strategies to future clients, and such the legibility of the
past project is essential to explaining the confidence and ability of the
designer for the conditions. Especially within a network similar to Toptal,
perhaps the ability to share and represent work can lead to future
collaboration, or further progression of outcomes and ideas.
The Strategic Design
Vocabulary is not necessarily a step by step guide on how to be a better
designer, but it intends to develop a thought process in questioning what the
designer can offer beyond the production of outcomes and artefacts. How can we
assert the value of the profession as something not just necessary, but
fundamental to the process of innovation and cultural generation.
This article was originally published on Toptal
Author
Kent Mundle
Email: jordan.lyons@toptal.com
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