Design doubts

My most recent book is IT service by design, written with Catherine Zuim Florentino . It’s a lovely book. One of my best. So far. Feel free to buy it.

Unsurprisingly, one of the key concepts is design. Design is such a deceptively innocent word. However, it?gave me quite an exquisite headache trying to grasp what it actually is. “Actually” in italics because it turned out to be one of those ineffable and amorphous things that, just when you think you’ve got hold of it, takes on another form. This article explores my doubts.

After much iteration – iteration being true to the nature of design – I came up the following definition. I say “I” not “we” because I had the headache. Being a designer, Catherine knows better than to go down this rabbit hole. As for me, I must have been a ferret in one of my previous lives.

Definition

Anyway, I was reluctantly happy with a (not “the”) definition as “an intentional, emergent, adaptive and generative act of harnessing potential and envisioning reality, which precipitates the transformation of ideas into reality”. This typically terse assertion needs a voiceover, as follows:

• This definition frames design as a dynamic and ongoing conscious process that evolves in response to changing needs and contexts. The term emergent emphasizes that design is not a fixed or linear process but one that arises from the interaction of various elements over time. It is also adaptive, meaning that the design process adjusts to new information and feedback as it unfolds.
• The word generative highlights design's active role in creating new possibilities and shaping future outcomes. Harnessing potential speaks to how design draws on available resources, ideas, and opportunities, while envisioning reality refers to the act of imagining what could be possible within those constraints. It envisions new realities not through abstract planning alone, but through an embodied understanding that actively brings forth transformation. This is why design can be found in nature (like crows[1] solving problems) and in human creativity – it's a fundamental way that intelligence engages with and transforms the world.
• Finally, precipitates the transformation of ideas into reality suggests that design not only precedes or informs change, but plays a critical role in initiating the change needed to move concepts from thought to tangible form, causing new realities to crystallize from the field of possibility. This transformation is not part of design, but what follows design.

It’s a useful definition. It addresses significant aspects.

Doubts

And yet. And yet. That final sentence. “This transformation is not part of design, but what follows design.” It seems so innocent. First you design something, then you build it. Or do you?

One of the sources for my doubts was Dan Nessler ’s “Revamped Double Diamond Design Process Framework”, that builds on the classic Double Diamond[2] (2004).

Dan’s variation first emerged in 2016[3] (see header figure) and was updated in 2018[4], better visualizing the iterative nature of the deliver phase.

It initially concerned me that the framework included “build”. If it’s a framework for design, then it’s ‘obviously’ not about build. So, what was behind this thinking?

Is design involved the transformation of a design into an artefact? Surely. But does this imply that design is part of build and, if so, how can you model this entanglement?

Dan, by the way, is far from dogmatic. He positions his framework as a mix of a practical how-to guide as well as an abstraction of the real world. A world that is too complex to be captured in a two-dimensional figure. It’s a source of inspiration to be contextualized to the specific situation’s needs. And very useful too.

Solution?

Maybe the solution is to distinguish between phases of progress and types of activities performed in these phases – design activities in the build phase. Oh well, maybe in the next book.

For the time-being, problem solved by looking at it from another angle and making the phase-activity distinction. The power of perspective. Instant paracetamol. Until it wears off…

Resignation

For the record, this is how we framed design in our book, with a clear distinction between design, realization(build), and operations.

I still like it, but look at it differently than a few months ago.

I can live with doubt[5].

I have to.

[1] Inspired by Rudolf T. A. Greger – Businessdesign-Coach in one of our reflective discussions

[2] https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-resources/the-double-diamond/

[3] https://medium.com/digital-experience-design/how-to-apply-a-design-thinking-hcd-ux-or-any-creative-process-from-scratch-b8786efbf812

[4] https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-solve-problems-applying-a-uxdesign-designthinking-hcd-or-any-design-process-from-scratch-v2-aa16e2dd550b

[5] https://youtu.be/czcv4b6rKgk