Design

Latin root for verb: designare - to designate, to ascribe a quality to something.

To design, a design.  

We use these terms easily every day.  Recently I asked a designer what it is that a designer does.  I think we all have some sort of idea of what to expect as an answer.  I’ll let you think about that for a moment.

Over the past months I have been working on several projects that required me to think about the aspects of business.  These included what the essential elements of a business are, including the operational and structural parts that it needs to function.  I came to the conclusion that a business does not have to be something you do for profit alone.  The same elements are needed even if you develop a street market concept where your only gain is the existence of the market on the designated day.  Simple really in hindsight, but not so obvious to many individuals trying to develop a case for starting a not-for-profit operation.

Risk analysis, growth analysis and strategic planning all play roles in what makes a business.  These are all processes and I think we can easily agree that the more skill you have in doing these things, and the more critical your views are, the better the chance of the processes yielding successful outcomes.  Your experience (or lack of it) of the structures and hierarchies in a business, at all levels - including the network dynamics between people, may add or detract from your advice you give and from the final outcome.  That seems obvious.

The reason I asked the designer about her profession was that on another occasion I explained to a friend what I had been doing for the past year for a client.  He looked at me and asked if they actually paid for that!  I was taken aback.  Did he miss the significance of my contribution, did I oversell the value of my work to the client, what was wrong here?  The answer of the designer was similar to mine and I felt like I was making a case for my existence and my work.  I could see that she too was trying hard to explain the obvious.  But it was not so obvious.  

This is design: obvious in hindsight, but extremely non-trivial during inception.  We know a good design when we see it, we feel we can easily tell when it is bad.  But can we derive a new concept if there is nothing in front of us to start from or to criticize?  That is the difficult part I guess.   The best description I have seen so far for design comes from the foreword of the book “The Strategic Designer” by David Holston.  In this section Shawn McKinney says that designers ‘move things about’.  They consider new combinations and they trade in possibility.  These new combinations and concepts are developed at the physical and psychological level.  It may be the replacement for the computer mouse, it may be the new colour scheme for next year’s designer clothes.  He concludes that designers ‘order, organise, reinterpret shape and communicate ideas, information and space’.

Suddenly I knew what the value was that I added to the projects of my client.  I helped them bring a new order to their business model, I supported the development of a new strategy by showing them new possibilities that they were not able to conceive of themselves and I helped them package it for easy communication.  I could do this because of my experience, the processes I have mastered and because I came with an outsider’s perspective.  I was paid not for what was on paper only, but also for the facilitation towards a new, living operational design for their business.  I helped them see new opportunities. 

I want to take this one step further and consider what is known as design science research.  This process framework (I fear if a call it a method I will open another can of worms) allows one to develop an artifact (tangible or intangible).  The process relies heavily on one being able to identify a problem and to justify the value of finding a solution.  

The problem definition and setting of boundaries allow for the development of the objectives of the solution (tangible or intangible - it does not matter), and this solution may be innovative at many levels.  It may not need to be completely new, and as I have discussed before, it may be as simple as ‘just’ rearranging of the deck chairs!  The only proviso is that the solution objectives must be related rationally and objectively to the problem space definition.  

It is a creative process to develop the functionality and architecture that will bring the artifact into being, and there are several process frameworks available for this.  One can use modeling and simulation techniques to develop the first instance or concept solution and to demonstrate the utility.  Ultimately, the utility of the designed artifact is measured in the problem space where ideally, it will solve the problem as best as is possible under the constraints or boundaries agreed upon initially.  

And that, I guess, is the core of the art of design.  

The image used here is my own and is of the Sydney Opera House.  I see this solution to the need for an iconic cultural space as a good example of how design can be many things to many people.  Some hated the solution initially, and some loved it so much that the project, that ran many years late, paid for itself in less than five years after commissioning.