Design Strategy 99% Bad!: A rebuttal
Rick Poynor, in his recent I.D. magazine essay “Down with Innovation”, attempts to defend the honor and singular talents of his creative brethren but instead manages only to set up a series of sadly defensive straw men. Like the luddites of the past who railed against encroaching technology, Poynor operates primarily from a place of misunderstanding and fear. Design strategists seek not to replace designers and their work but rather to help both practitioner and practice stretch, grow and–yes, it’s true–evolve in a rapidly changing, customer-driven world.
It’s the rise of so-called Design Thinking that Poynor objects to–particularly its strong reliance on words:
“Design thinkers are masterly at weaving a dense web of plausible-sounding words around their analysis–just read their blogs–and this is where they win out against designers, who generally speak most eloquently through their work.”
Poynor seems to be horrified at the democratization the internet provides: anyone can have a blog and publish their opinions about design even if they’re not design practitioners! It’s the reaction of a professional who awoke one morning to find that the world had moved on and left him behind. The need to demonstrate value has long been at the forefront of business—if designers were unable (or unwilling) to stoop to helping their clients craft “a list of handy PowerPoint bullets”, someone else had to.
What’s largely missing from Poynor’s piece is a single definition for design–because the design to which he refers and the design to which the Design Strategists refer are not, I think, the same thing. Poynor focuses entirely on the visual product which is an end result. Design Strategists, on the other hand, are looking at design as problem solving–a way of thinking about and approaching situations in order to arrive at a solution. The irony here is that design thinking is also what leads to that visual end product that Poynor is so interested in defending. Poynor’s mistake is assuming that design thinking can’t be used to create anything other than that visual end product. Tell that to IDEO.
Poynor, for all his insistence that designers are ‘not a breed apart’, seems awfully keen to keep everyone without a BFA out of the design clubhouse. Yet he has some very stringent requirements for clients when he bemoans that designers still face the challenge of
“. . . how to communicate with clients who lack a basic grounding in the visual arts and don’t seem to think it matters. Businesspeople don’t need to become designers.”
Beating the old ‘clients are dumb’ drum is very disappointing. Haven’t we all learned by now that the best way to succeed is to partner with our clients? To learn as much about their world as we ask they learn about ours? I think you’d be hard pressed to actually find a CEO or CMO who wants to ‘be a designer’ but yes, executives are getting more involved in product design. Unlike Poynor, they have come to realize that the final experience of a product or service is what directly affects their bottom line.
Most tellingly, nowhere does Poynor even glance in the direction of customer experience save to frame it as a burden on the souls of designers who he thinks have been branded as wanting to “impose their impractical excesses on long-suffering consumers whom they never trouble to consult”. Unfortunately, he does nothing to dispute the accusation.
In a particularly stunning rhetorical move, Poynor starts to veer in the direction of conflating design with art: “. . .in 2108, if there are museums then, no one will queue to see a strategy.” The entire article is about designers—not about clients, business or consumers. Is it any wonder that corporations have fled from such obvious egotism and moved toward practitioners who aren’t afraid to engage with them in open and collaborative ways?
Last 5 posts by Gabby Hon
- Confessions of an Interaction Designer – April 2nd, 2008
- Less Talking, More Doing – February 13th, 2008
- Beacon 2.0: LinkedIn tries a different approach – December 12th, 2007
- Four days in Paris: what I learned about customer experience – November 2nd, 2007
This such a well-written piece. It’s so thoughtful, restrained when appropriate and strong when necessary.
Perfect.
Critically Massive, but not Massively Critical…
While we recently highlighted the trolling Poynor anti-innovation piece, we can’t recommend strongly enough Gabby Hon’s thoughtful and insightful rebuttal at Experience Matters…….
[...] piece, we can’t recommend strongly enough Gabby Hon’s thoughtful and insightful rebuttal at Experience [...]
I have yet to read Rick Poynor’s piece in ID, so I will save my comments about that another time. However, to the point of design thinking, and design in general problem solving is very important. Not having a formal BFA background, but working in a design studio has taught me the importance of partnerships and shared understanding of how design as a practice can be used to help resolve problems.
Our problems are becoming more complex, so collaboration is going to be even more critical. Why wait until it’s too late?
Gabby,
I agree with Steve’s assessment. I appreciate you showing passion and convictions in this well written post without going “over the top”. Upon first reading Rick’s article, I immediately understood what he was trying to defend. The importance of craft in design. But as you pointed out, his article quickly degraded and by showing his disdain for designers that “think differently” from him, I felt he had done the people he was advocating for a disservice.
In a Twitter, I wrote: “Graphic Designers, you need to fire your spokespeople”.
Or maybe they should start writing more. Last time I checked, design thinkers didn’t have a monopoly on the written word.
Thanks for a solid post.
Nicely written.
I haven’t read Rick’s post either (on my way over there now). I just wanted to comment on this statement …
“I think you’d be hard pressed to actually find a CEO or CMO who wants to ‘be a designer’ …”
I’ve yet to find one who doesn’t want to be a designer.
They’ve all professed that what we do is ‘fun’ compared to what they are faced with in their jobs. And that they would be happier having that very same fun.
I’ve even had a few clients turn into backseat designers for the very same reason. Ouch.
Bravo!
Well done – I couldn’t agree more!
Being a design strategist myself, from the fabled design thinking breeding ground of the Institute of Design, I think we’ve gotten a bit overly defensive by Poyner’s commentary. In almost every respect, I happen to agree with him.
I think what he is trying to say is that there is something FAR deeper to design than mere analysis, synthesis, and strategy. True design is about being incredibly profound, and creative. You can only know it when you experience it. And that True design comes from a deep well of mysticism that I don’t believe we’ll ever understand or be able to visualize with a fancy axis diagram.
It comes from beyond our mental capacities. I’d argue it comes directly from a spiritual source. That connection is what art, the other side of design, is about.
Design strategy, user research, insight, innovation, analysis, sythesis, etc, etc, etc have all lop-sided design towards the science side. But the true “innovation” of design does not come from tapping this aspect. Yes, we can come up with Gold medal winning materialistic crap by tapping that science side, but incredibly profound and creative, spiritual? No.
For that we have to tap the art of design…and you can’t “design think” art. Art comes from raw emotion, feeling and experience – our very spiritual core. I don’t believe we’ll ever be able to strategize that. It is something that comes from within, as an artist paints a masterpiece.
Poyner’s justified concern is that we are leaning too heavily on that science side and are forgetting about that raw spiritual connection only the most creative, and artistic, designs can provide.
We may be able to determine some “power axes” and some “Innovation creation strategies” around how to create the perfect picasso, but that won’t make us him – and it never will.
His point is that “design thinking” is over thinking. The best designs are not about thinking at all.
Does that mean there isn’t a place for our niche? No. But it does mean we shouldn’t be the kings of the dogpile.
I have a confession to make. I have a hard time distinguishing the difference between “Design Strategist” and “Designer.” As a Designer, I assume the role of design strategist with every project I undertake. Design (in every form) is problem solving, and the analysis and research phase of the process is critical.
But “design thinking” is just the beginning of the process. I combine that logic and research with my insight and experience as a visual designer. I can only see failure (or, at best, partial success) when only one half of the sequence is applied.
I read Mr. Poynor’s piece in I.D. While I don’t agree with everything he says, his last paragraph resonates with me. Visual design without a properly constructed design strategy is empty. Design strategy without a properly executed visual design is unfulfilled.
Now get the designers on board…that’s the real challenge. This shift needs to be pushed up pushed down in the form of a mandate.
“The first step in the process of disempowering designers is to insinuate that, despite all that time at design school followed by years of doing the job, they have an incomplete grasp of design.”
Poynor seems to imply that design schools teach great designers about design, whenreas my feeling is that great designers learn to develop form regardless of schooling. Great writers in my mind are a excellent analogy, since we would be hard pressed to find a school which cranks them out consistently. But as a professional tool, find an executive that does not have an opinion on the writing that they and their company are supposed to present. Nobody says we should cease to teach the skill or have an opinion about its merits. Nor, have I heard from anybody other than journalists, that blogging is a threat to writing.
Both articles have good points, and I agree with Bierut, that simply developing form is really valuable. I look at design as a tool, or a broad set of tools. And, the client, the user, and the resulting artifact dictates the set used. My inclination is to look at practice as a viewpoint, and the goal is to find clients that are relevant to that point of view. But, communicating with them is very likely not the trait I would use to define a designer!
There’s more to this story in reading the comments. This is something that clearly needs more open discussion to increase understanding.
Matt made great points, all very informed. But to suggest that true innovation doesn’t come from leveraging constraints misses the point of design altogether. This, I believe, is the essence of the unidentified ‘gap’ — understanding which constraints to embrace and which ones to push back on.
Is this a conversation on creating value or a turf war for the billable hour?
Personally I think it is time for more visual designers to find their voice. I’m not sure the POV (rebuttal) nor tone of this piece will encourage them.
Thanks everyone for stopping by and leaving a comment!
I think we all get where Mr. Poynor was coming from: defending the craft of visual design. It’s just that the piece veers into peevish, self-pitying territory which sucks all the power out of his argument.
I agree wholeheartedly that more designers should embrace the written word–it’s a darn shame that so few do. Why do you think that is, Kelly?
I read your review of Rick Poyner’s, “Down With Innovation”, and based on the power of your review, decided to read his article in full. As I read Mr. Poyner, I began to see your points; I too reacted negatively to his argument as I read it. Now that I’ve finished his article, I’d like to add my two cents to the discussion, but first I think it would be beneficial to compare your definition of design to Mr. Poyner’s.
Based on your review, your definition, and that of the Design Strategist, approaches design as a process in order to arrive at a solution:
“Design Strategists, on the other hand, are looking at design as problem solving–a way of thinking about and approaching situations in order to arrive at a solution.”
In his article, Mr. Poyner is definitely referring to design as something else, but what? After re-reading Poyner, I believe I found the answer to your assertion that “What is largely missing from Mr. Poyner’s piece is a single definition for design”.
To quote Mr. Poyner:
“Give me something tangible, something brilliant and extraordinary that illuminates our perception of what human life can be.”
The difference between your definition of design and Mr. Poyner’s is clear: you believe in process to create an end result and Mr. Poyner believes in nothing but the end result.
After thinking this through I now agree with Mr. Poyner and here’s why.
Your oversight was to assume Mr. Poyner was describing the end result as “visual” when in fact he defines the end result of design as the communication of passion.
After twenty-five years in marketing, most recently as Chief Marketing Officer for a sports equipment brand, experience has taught me that a focus on process guarantees nothing but a focus on process, at best resulting in a finite solution the same way the process of 1 plus 1 always results in 2. Only Mr. Poyner’s focus on passion stands a chance of creating an end result, a “customer experience”, that is equal to 3 or more.
Consider Apple, the pre-eminent “design” brand of today as the best defense of Mr. Poyner’s definition. Apple is the best expression of what Dori Tunstall refers to as “the inherent intelligence to beauty, which is about the depth and passion we feel for the world”. Apple isn’t driven by a design process, but by a passion to create things that are “insanely great”. It is this passion that drives all aspects of their brand and business. Apple could care less about process and solutions. They are solely focused on communicating passion to create the ultimate experience for their customers. Frankly, this is a far superior definition of design than your focus on process.
I’d like to address some of the specific comments you made about Mr. Poyner. Regarding your assertion that Mr. Poyner seems “awfully keen to keep everyone without a BFA out of the design clubhouse”, the fact is that any professional position requires specific training, including design. You apparently have had some training in your field. Regardless of how much training, you have more authority to speak on that subject than an untrained individual. This is Mr. Poyner’s point, not, as you claim, that “clients are dumb”. Clients aren’t dumb, but they aren’t qualified to speak or act as design professionals anymore than you can speak on finance, medicine, or any other field where you have absolutely zero training.
I’d also like to point out the liberties you’ve taken with Mr. Poyner’s comments regarding the customer’s experience.
You state:
“Most tellingly, nowhere does Poynor even glance in the direction of customer experience save to frame it as a burden on the souls of designers who he thinks have been branded as wanting to “impose their impractical excesses on long-suffering consumers whom they never trouble to consult. Unfortunately, he does nothing to refute the accusation”.
Here’s what Mr. Poyner wrote:
“Having written off designers as mere stylists with insufferable egos, whose sole aim is to impose their impractical excesses on long-suffering consumers whom they never trouble to consult, the way is clear for a new breed of intermediary to step up and take business’s hand. They might once have called themselves design consultants—the rhetoric is not so different—but today they are known as design thinkers and innovation experts.”
What Mr. Poyner describes here is obviously true, thanks to your review. I’m afraid you’ve damned your argument, and yourself, with your own ill-chosen words.
Great post and well articulated Gabby. I agree especially with Derek’s comment that “Visual design without a properly constructed design strategy is empty. Design strategy without a properly executed visual design is unfulfilled.” We need each other.
I can hardly believe that there are still credible critics out there (Rick) who are still willing to take the design-is-not-for-the-unwashed masses side of the debate.
As I said in an earlier post defending personas, I’d like to see less posturing from the design community about purity in the design process, particularly that great designs exist only to uplift the human spirit and are somehow beyond the base world of commerce. A great design is great because it creates desire (just like a great ad campaign), not because it’s a work of art.
at Personally I don’t mind the tone of Rick’s piece.
Kelly said
“Personally I think it is time for more visual designers to find their voice.”
Amen. And to the point of this post encouraging or discouraging visual designers it’s probably giving this blog too much credit. (as much as I think we’re giving blogging a good run for the money here)
Visual/Graphic designers play an incredibly important role in the design and creation of experiences/interactions. When I talk about the idea of “micro interactions” it means that every minute building block of an experience is critical. The visual design of the iPhone’s icons is just as important as the way they wiggle.
But really, visual designers don’t need an invitation to find their voice. They just need to do it. And doing it in a way that communicates to non-designers as well would probably serve them well.
Language choices influence what is heard.
I recently discovered Roger Martin and his POV on the relationship between Reliability and Validity. I think many Interaction Designers and Planners relate their approaches and methods in the business language of reliability, whereas visual designers rationalize with the language of validity. Here is a link to a presentation on this by Roger Martin. http://tinyurl.com/5ablf2
There is something to this Gabby, I think we should discuss it further.
Very thoughtful response. Thank you. Immediately after reading Poyner’s article I emailed a colleague and stated that I agree with Poyer AND I think he’s dead wrong. It seems that when people attack (yes, attack) the “design thinking” approach they often exaggerate the sentiments of its proponents.
First misconception is that we don’t care at all about form or visual beauty, or that we think it doesn’t matter. When, in fact, I feel we understand how visual form and craft relates to, exists in, and affects its context.
Second is that we blindly follow our clients wishes. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Especially when “design thinkers” are so often trying to reframe the problems brought to them.
Third is that we think we have some sort of “precise methodologies and defined, quantifiable outcomes.” I have yet to meet a “design thinker” who thinks that some method or process will guarantee a certain outcome. We simply try to approach things holistically, thus want to make sure we’ve covered our bases.
In response my colleague stated that the problem with Poynor’s argument is that he is talking exclusively about designing THINGS (objects).
GK VanPatter would call this 1.0 or 2.0 design… At the level of PRODUCTS. This is why Poynor was talking about seeing the designs in a museum.
However, if one is designing services or transforming experiences, there is nothing TANGIBLE to put in the museum in the first place. All that may ‘exist’ is the strategy that was developed through design thinking.
So in the end, Poyner is talking about one thing (object design), but criticizing another (systems design). Since they are different, both arguments can be accepted.
Gabby, I appreciate you taking the time to thoughtfully respond to this article. As a someone who still works in the field of Graphic Design I agree that our spokespeople should be fired. We have too many gatekeepers who grit their teeth at anything that they feel threatens their job, position, or importance.
a great design is one that delivers on the objective. It’s that simple. You can’t evaluate the work as it’s being created, but you sure can after it’s in the market.
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