Don’t be a designer

My goal has never been to be a designer or researcher. My goal has always been to make things better for people. We can argue (I won’t argue) about whether the outcomes of my work have achieved that goal. Most of the time, I have. A lot of the time, I haven’t.

But I feel confident saying, I am not a designer or researcher. I’ve balked, for most of my career, when asked the dreaded networking-event question, “So, what do you do?”

I usually say something along the lines of “I design software,” or “I make services work better,” or “I do research” and leave it at that. In fact, as I write this, I am reminded how many times I’ve written some version of this before.

So, Why Write It Again?

This morning, I read a post by Cornelius Rachieru, known more widely by the sobriquet Smarty-Pants McGillacuddy. The post in question: “Everyone Used to Be a Designer”. Happy to insert here the classic, “Go read it. I’ll wait.”

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I read it while leaning my head against the cabinet in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to finish steeping, and my take-away is: yep.

But I’m not sure the core of what Cornelius is describing is a bad thing.

Back in 2008, I wrote Part of My Job Is to Become Irrelevant. In 2018, I wrote Everyone Is a Designer. In 2022, I wrote Democratization Is Nothing to Fear — Unless You Fear Collaboration. I share these because I want to underscore that, for a long time, I’ve thought a lot differently than what feels like most people “in the profession”.

Lots of Designers have been laid off in recent months, but, I’d argue that the layoffs weren’t so thought-through as to understand (or care about) who was being laid off. These were cuts to appease stock prices and as fast as that could happen was the only way forward—even if it was ham-fisted.

I’ve been laid off a couple of times and it isn’t great at all. Well, some parts were pretty good, but only once enough time passed that I was able to have some perspective.

How Was Cornelius Wrong?

Ehhhh, he wasn’t. Isn’t.

Where I differ in perspective is that I don’t see most of the outcomes he describes in that post as inherently bad things—notwithstanding the layoffs. Though, I do know some of the people who got laid off and, to be brutally honest, we’d all be better off if they chose another path entirely. Love ya, Gary, but … stay out.

Capitalism, that thing in which you live, no matter how much you try to get out, has the sole purpose to commoditize everything, including people.

First, it was Usability Testing. Now it is UI Design. Next up is Research.

It’s always going to be like that for anything that is a repeatable process. What isn’t as easily repeatable: Making decisions about direction. Partly because the people who benefit most from Capitalism don’t think they should become irrelevant.

How Was Cornelius Right?

“Rigour in experience design is also heading in the wrong direction.”

and

“The primary directive of product design has also significantly shifted.”

and

“…stop the over-reliance on building more component libraries and design systems, and focus your career growth in areas of research and design that take advantage of your advanced cognitive processing and complex decision making capabilities as opposed to pattern recognition and pattern matching.”

I have and continue to blame people in UX Land who thought it was a good idea to “squeeze into Agile”. Stop buying the book “Lean UX” is what I am saying.

I had a conversation last week with someone I coach. They told me about an experience they had with some “Senior Designers” on a different team (at a FAANG company) who had no fundamental understanding of why anyone would want to define the Current State before designing the Future State. Not, “We don’t wanna do it,” or “We don’t have time to do that”.

They didn’t grok why it mattered.

I had a conversation yesterday with a small, but growing-fast company. They want help wrangling in some new hires—1 PM, 2 Designers. Apparently it didn’t occur to these 3 that they shouldn’t “huddle and come up with some design ideas” as a starting point. That maybe, talking with customers and looking at support tickets might be a better place to begin.

They didn’t grok why it mattered.

The Actual Problem

It’s pointless to point fingers, except for the ones I pointed above, but it may be worth looking at what is the actual problem.

We did it to ourselves. Which is Cornelius’ point, but I want to get more specific with who I’m including in “ourselves”: anyone who’s been a “Designer” since prior to January 9, 2007.

I’ve shared this perspective before, but the introduction of the iPhone was a tipping point for the commodification of Design. I initially wrote, Digital Design, but I also feel like the shift to UX = Digital is a symptom of the actual problem as well.

We didn’t prepare those who came after us. We didn’t stand in front of Leadership to quell their enthusiasm for the idea they had at dinner last night. We didn’t write enough, yell enough, when some of our ilk decided they needed to make their mark and shoehorn us into a process that wasn’t meant for true discovery in messy, complex spaces.

Some of us did, but not enough of us and not enough of the right ones—the right ones being people with well-established platforms.

We’ve drifted so far away from the good work that was started in the early-to-mid 2000s. Remember Web Standards? I bet most newly-minted Designers have no clue. Partially because the places they work think JavaScript can do it all. But, WaSP is just one example.

Too much focus has been on being Designers and Researchers (be both). My advice: Don’t be a Designer. Start helping.

The Actual Solution

I have no idea how to fix this, specifically. But, I believe it has to start with a shift in perspective about what it is that Designers do. That shift needs to start with Designers.

For the foreseeable future, with everything coming at us, the commoditization of our existence will continue. What I, and I suspect Cornelius, too, want for you is to believe it doesn’t have to continue like this—that you can, and should, adjust your thinking and efforts. Assuming you want to help make the world better.

Some things are well-served by a design system. Some projects can guess their way forward without much risk. But the actual value of what we could be doing with our time is worth investigating—individually and as a profession.

I’m worried though that y’all aren’t ready yet. I feel like the mass layoffs are an opportunity to rethink, but that won’t be able to happen until some time passes and perspective is gained. And by then, y’all may be back to worrying about how rounded the corners of a button should be. (The answer is 4 pixels.)

I am the one writing this, but, historically, I’m not the one who needs to be saying it in order to shift things toward a better direction. Cornelius either. It needs to be someone who has a direct line to the Business Ear.

It needs to be someone with clout, who writes articles for Forbes or something, who can say, “Something new is coming to the boardroom that will make Design Thinking look like Design Goofing Around.”

And that “something new” is something that fucking matters.

Is there anybody out there?