The Designers of the Future

I have been reading The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, and since I find it really interesting, I decided to have a look at some of his talks on YouTube. I particularly enjoyed a couple of them: one is a TED Talk called “Three Ways Good Design Makes You Happy”, and the other one, which I will now discuss, is entitled “Living with Complexity”.

In the past, design was mostly about creating pretty objects, no matter how they worked. Nowadays though, design takes technology and uses it to fill out human needs: it is the bridge between technology and people. Design needs not only to be beautiful, but also understandable to people, which is where human centered design comes in. Thus, in order to make good designs, designers need to know about three things: designing, people, and technology.

But here’s the problem: designers spend 4 to 6 years in college, learning about crafts, drawings and making things. They are taught how to make beautiful commodities, but unfortunately, in today’s world, that is no longer enough. Quite often their first job will be in fields such as finances, health systems, educational systems, transportation, etc. which they know nothing about. They also know very little about technology. Therefore, their training is not sufficient, or simply not adapted.

Today especially, there are more and more complex problems to deal with. Don Norman takes the example of the design of an escalator in Soho and its political problems, where so many parties are involved in the decision-making, so many people need to be pleased. There are multiple stakeholders, shop keepers, the city itself, the people who will use the escalator, the people constructing it, the problem of paying for it, etc.

In the future, there will be different types of problems (the example of the design of Ebola suits is used), and therefore more kinds of designers needed: some specialising in craft, in graphic and communication, in interaction, in products, and in systems. Designers will no doubt be required to design medical systems, educational systems, transportation systems, etc. For that, they will need to understand things like social structures, human behaviours, economics, business models, culture, politics, zoning regulations, laws, the medical industry, etc. All of this makes it clear the current education isn’t good enough.

Which is why Don Norman and a few Deans (mostly from design schools) are coming up with a new way of educating. They have written a manifesto, called Design X, which is in favour of teaching how to collaborate, and work on real problems that cannot be solved by a single designer. They want their students to know a little bit about everything (as opposed to the current university model that rewards experts in very narrow fields), so that they are able to, among other things, decide which experts to bring in, communicate, understand, and collaborate with them.

This new way of teaching might be an answer to the recurrent problem first job seekers are facing: employers want you to have experience, but how can you have experience if no one hires you because of your lack of experience??

The only way to move forward and become great at what you’re doing is by asking questions, learning from others, and discover that maybe the way we’ve always done things isn’t good enough. It is by improving things constantly (without seeking the truth, as scientists do), but without necessarily aiming  for perfection, as it probably does not exist. It is by learning from all your previous designs. It is by always keeping the users in mind. Designers are not problem solvers, but problem definers: by understanding the issue and where it comes from, they more often than not realise that the problem they were asked to solve was not the real problem, and that the real one lies somewhere else.

The idea of collaboration is even more important with automation taking over: it will become vital not to be made obsolete, but to work together with machines to achieve what’s never been done before, and for our talents to be even more required, as opposed to losing our skills.

While you watch this video, do bear in mind that it is 5 years old already and that a few things have changed: nowadays there are more types of designers than back then. But what remains true no matter how many years have passed is this: the user stays at the center of everything we design.

If you want to watch the full video:

If you want to check out the other video I mentioned, click here: 3 Ways Good Design Makes You Happy by Don Norman