What Digital Design really entails
How about a little more professionalism in digitalization?
In today’s day and age, digitalization affects not only experts and nerds - but all of us. We all use countless digital solutions on a large and small scale, at work and at home. From payment services to music and video streaming, fitness trackers, smart lighting and heating control, digital tracking systems in logistics, autonomous vehicles and self-learning production robots.?
But why do only a few digital solutions seem to be well thought out, clearly structured and truly innovative??
We have many technology experts for AI, Big Data, Blockchain, 5G, Cloud, Serverless Computing, etc. who do a very good job. Likewise, there are many product managers, product owners, requirements engineers, UX designers, software architects, etc. who are committed to their profession and do an excellent job. who are committed to their profession and perform exceptionally well in their fields. ?
So, what’s not quite right about it? What's missing and why do we still find it so difficult to create good digital solutions? ?
In our opinion, there is a lack of a holistic approach. It doesn’t suffice to just be excellent in specialist fields. We need to take an overarching perspective and ask ourselves how digitalization affects people, companies and society in interaction. To design good digital solutions, multiple aspects need to be considered and reconciled, e.g., sustainability, new business models, societal benefits and added value, user experience, operability, etc. Furthermore, it is essential for a good digital solution to present complex issues in a simple way and make them manageable in order to reduce fear of contact with digital solutions and thus increase the acceptance of digital solutions.?
In 2017 Bitkom already pointed out [1] that digitalization and digital transformation will require new job profiles that go beyond skills in classical software development - and, as is common in product and industrial design, called for digital designers to be trained with strong design skills to shape good digital solutions (see 10 Principles for Good Digital Design (Digital Design Manifesto [2]).?
The Digital Design Professional (DDP), IREB's new continuing education program, addresses precisely this point and views digitalization as a holistic design task, called Digital Design. But what does that actually mean? ?
Digital design is more than making something look nice?
A first important insight is to understand that digital designers are not solely responsible for making a digital solution look pretty - there are already other disciplines that work well for that!?
Following Bitkom's "Digital Design" role ideal, digital designers design and optimize digital products, systems and services. In doing so, they take into account the area of conflict between the wishes and needs of users, the economic framework conditions and the technical possibilities. Digital designers guide the development process through sketches, models, specifications and prototypes. They work in multidisciplinary groups with the management, marketing, development and operation of software.?
From this description, it quickly becomes apparent that Digital Design is much more than making digital solutions look nice. We understand Digital Design more in the sense of the holistic design of a solution.?
It's nice to see that Steve Jobs saw it the same way almost 20 years ago, when he said in an interview with the New York Times: "Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it's this veneer - that the designers are handed this box and told, "Make it look good!" That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." [3].?
In order to meet exactly these demands and to design good digital solutions, we need ways of thinking and skills that aren’t seen enough in software development today! These ways of thinking and skills include:?
Digital material science - thinking and skills for the proper use of digital material?
Just as industrial designers know their materials in order to design office furniture, coffee machines, etc., digital designers need to know their digital material in order to design good digital solutions. This brings us to our metaphor of "understanding digital as material". We want to make aware that digital technologies for the design of e.g., user interfaces, interfaces to existing services, network structures, or operating systems are the material of digital designers to design good digital solutions. Similar to an industrial designer, it is important to know the broad spectrum of materials, but it is also important to know the properties and limitations of certain materials and to know which material can and cannot be used for what. However, this also includes understanding what skills are needed for use and future maintenance.?
However, digital designers do not have to be experts in specific technologies - usually, industrial designers are also not experts for all materials - but they should be able to talk to experts on an equal footing and know what options are available and who exactly they need to call in for implementation.?
Design and design processes: Thought processes and skills for designing and conceptualizing digital solutions?
In addition to knowledge of digital material, it is important that digital designers - like industrial designers - have design skills. This means they need to develop a sense of how digital material can fix an existing problem or support a new business idea with digital material. Design and conceptual skills are needed here to understand and conceptualize the different dimensions of the solution. A design process is often a highly iterative and creative process in which the understanding of the problem and the understanding of the solution complement each other step by step. This goes on until a first usable overall picture emerges that makes the problem tangible and presents the first "usable" approaches to a solution. This process can sometimes appear very chaotic because the work here is strongly explorative (cf. Design Squiggle [4]). In addition to human-centered design (HCD), design thinking is also used in the design process, for example, to create (design) concepts for the subsequent development of the digital solution.?
It is important to accept that in the course of finding a solution, the problem area also changes and is only understood gradually and iteratively through a wide variety of approaches.?
People and Business - The ability to understand and consider human and business factors equally?
With the fifth principle for good Digital Design: "Good Digital Design focuses on the whole person" the human aspect becomes the focus of design. This is important in order to understand what impact a digital solution will have on the individual and on society as a whole, how this solution will be used, what misuse can be assumed, etc.??
Equally important are the economic factors for the digital solution, ranging from the cost of development, operation, maintenance and training of users to possible savings potential or revenue sources to be achieved through digital solution. This can also be, for example, a completely new e-business model that would not be feasible without the available technology, e.g., the "renting" of music via a monthly subscription for music streaming. This is only possible today because sufficient bandwidth is available for streaming, the critical mass of those who have a PC, laptop or another smart device to use this service has been exceeded, distribution of the data via the cloud is made possible, etc. Here it is important to recognize that it is often only digital solutions that enable certain business models - i.e., become the driver of the business instead of merely supporting (enabling) it, as it was done in previous years.?
Are digital designers the new superheroes??
If you want to combine these skills in one person, the final question inevitably arises: What kind of people are they? Do digital designers really have to combine all these skills and can such people really exist in reality? Or are digital designers fictitious superheroes??
Of course, digital designers are superheroes in a way, they create great solutions - but not in the sense mentioned above. They are just as little superheroes as industrial designers or building architects, but more so well-trained people who use their skills in a targeted manner. ?
Digital designers are detail-oriented generalists, curious, communicative and, above all, digital enthusiasts. They ensure that digital solutions are designed together in multidisciplinary groups with the management, marketing, development and operation of these solutions. They recognize where experts are needed, bring them in and communicate with them at eye level - without knowing every detail themselves.?
Essence: Good Digital Design can only be achieved through transdisciplinary teamwork and only with a team that can cover the diversity of digital design skills.?
Have we sparked your interest in Digital Design? Then take a look at www.digitaldesign.org??