Protecting Meaningful Design
New course! I’m now learning about leadership in the design industry. At first glance, it seemed that the reading materials for this week's course were talking about unrelated topics. But with a little added reflection, they could really all fall under the umbrella of one professional agenda: setting a course and charting a worthwhile path in the business industry, especially with regard to design decisions. It does not matter if the circumstance is a designer trying to make their way as a freelancer or a high-profile CEO seeking insights for new competitive strategies with a team of designers. The impact of how business is carried and how products are designed pivotally determines whether the business "ship sails or sinks." Like it or not, the framework by which a company determines designs and runs a business says everything about its brand because of its potential impact on the world. Consequently, if such a framework is so critical, it is important the framework be established based on worthwhile meaning and values.
In the article "Logitech Quadrupled Its Profits–With One Big Design Idea," the company's success was largely attributed to following its "Big Design Idea" principle. Their approach was much like implementing a successful business model. There is no doubt that having solid, well-defined design principles generate significant value. They certainly are useful for providing guidelines and structure to organizational departments for successfully building a product that people will want to buy and use. However, design principles offer much more than that. As Reena Merchant pointed out, there is meaning behind every design. The idea of meaning is very human and powerful. It is the very thing that ultimately compels customers to engage with a brand. Meaning can make the difference, no matter the price or the features.
We must protect the value of meaning in everything we create, be it a small product or a major brand.
The importance of seeing meaning as directly translating to business value holds true for both design principles as well as business models. Both the product and the business creating it are trying to reach a specific customer to generate value. There is not much that is different between the two, apart from the focus of attention. A design principle is just like a business model but concentrated on a product instead of an organization. However, the essential commonality between the two is a streamlining of values from a provider to a customer. If a company is trying to create a successful brand ("successful" meaning that they have value in the eyes of the customers), the business's model for operations and workflows must uphold the product's design's principles, which in turn are developed by human values that it can affirm for the customer (such as accomplishment, freedom, security, among many others).
I'm thankful for Mike Monteiro's "live" document "The Ethics of Design" and what it stands for. It aims to protect the human values we must all strive for when design and business inevitably mix. We must protect the value of meaning in everything we create, be it a small product or a major brand.
