> Where do ideas come from?
> From looking at one thing and seeing another.
> From fooling around, and playing with possibilities.
> From speculating. And changing.
> Pushing, pulling.
> Transforming.
> And if you’re lucky, you come up with something worth saving, using, and building on.
> That’s where the game stops, and the work begins.
– [Saul Bass](http://meditativespectrum.com/2011/12/29/why-humans-create/)
I worked on early versions of [this](https://plus.sandbox.google.com/111626127367496192147/posts)…the team has taken it a LONG way since then! Glad to see it reach the light of day.
The designer of Flipboard for iPhone [had a book printed of all the intermediate designs he created](http://craigmod.com/journal/digital_physical/), along with Git comments and photos from the launch party.
What a cool way to celebrate the design process! [Via Kevin Kelly](https://plus.google.com/116416314233992548280/posts/NgsVt17BFVz).
> As we get more technically driven, the importance of people becomes more than it’s ever been before. You have to utilize who you are in your work. Nobody else can do that: nobody else can pull from your background, from your parents, your upbringing, your whole life experience. – [David Carson](http://www.ted.com/talks/david_carson_on_design.html?source=google_plusone)
“Consumer” is one of those words I’ve never been comfortable with. Along with “user”, it refers to real people as simply receptacles for whatever companies churn out for them. It’s a lazy, impersonal, demeaning, and ultimately unhelpful word.
[Alex Bogusky thinks that as consumption is inevitable, people just need to be *better* consumers](http://fearlessrevolution.com/blog/the-empowered-consumer.html). I agree that’s needed, but still believe our word choice matters and can be improved. [Lots of other people think so too](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+word+consumer%22).
The most obvious and simple change is to substitute “people” for these dirty words. That works almost universally, and I use it effectively in my design practice. But today I stumbled upon a use of another word that is more than benign–it’s empowering:
[Transformation](http://www.natlogic.com/resources/publications/new-bottom-line/vol4/12-more-things-change-production-transformation/).
The article itself takes the side of “producers”, acknowledging that nothing is truly produced; it is merely transformed from one (perhaps natural) state to another. Carrying that theme through to the people we design for emphasizes that they too will transform what they receive, putting their stamp on it, doing good or ill with it.
Transformation happens to products, commodities, experiences, and ideas. The word transformation recognizes that people have the opportunity to improve what they receive, but also the responsibility of managing it.
I’m going to try substituting the word “transformer” for “person” in my work–probably just to myself at first–to see if it changes my design decisions.
*Step 1*: Find the best, most experienced, most professional product designer you can.
*Step 2*: Ask them what to do.
*Step 3*: Do what they say.
Profit! Ok, maybe a little more detail would help.
For *Step 1*, your goal is to find the person with the most experience designing products that will work with you. This may or may not be someone with the title “designer”; if you find a “product manager” or “engineer” who has successfully led a dozen projects to good results, that might be the best person to trust. You’re looking for quantity of past work (remember [the ceramics class](http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2007/02/quantity_equals.html)) and quality (defined by whatever metric is most important to you and the project–innovation, aesthetics, market success, reliability, etc). Whatever their title, you should make it clear to everyone on the project that *this* person is the lead designer.
Don’t know any great designers? Ask everyone you know who their favorite designer is, then ask that designer about the best person they know. Repeat until you run out of time and/or money.
*Step 2* is pretty straightforward but often forgotten. In the heat of the moment, most people revert to voicing their own answers rather than asking questions. Designers work best when their opinion is sought out, not when they have to shout to be heard. Their job is to make design decisions, so bring them everything you can. A good designer will be humble enough to say they don’t know when that’s the case.
The wrong way to interpret *Step 3* is to assume every lead designer should act like a dictator–shouting orders and demanding obedience. A great designer will first set up a design process that includes everyone on the team in the right way. They’ll probably ask more questions than give answers (see Step 2), and will want to understand all the various options and known constraints.
But at some point decisions have to be made (specified in that process) and at that point you have to follow the person you’ve entrusted with design authority. A project where only half a design is followed can turn out worse than one with no design. A great design is holistic and integrated, and if you choose to compromise it–through impatience, penny-pinching, or simply lack of appreciation for the design quality–your product will not be great. On the other hand, products that do fulfill their designed form and function are a breath of fresh air and a shock to a world accustomed to mediocrity and imitation.
Three steps. Easier said than done…but worth trying.
U.S. manufacturing is rapidly going away, exemplified by [this story about Apple](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all) which shows the power of scale and cultural advantages in China and other Asian countries. Thus ends a century of American innovation in manufacturing, starting in the days of Henry Ford and the assembly line and reaching its zenith in and after WWII.
I’ve always felt like design is a more sustainable industry for nations, as no one can better design for a culture than its own citizens–and I say that as someone whose current job is to design for other cultures. As Apple itself shows, design “alone” can create huge amounts of wealth for companies and individuals. But it’s still unclear whether a culture can sustain itself by only designing, and outsourcing the manufacturing of, the products and services it uses.
Of course there’s no guarantee at all that the number of jobs in the world will exactly equal the number of people in it. I just hope that the work we’re doing to evolve design practice provides enough fulfilling work for enough people to get us to a sustainable place–worldwide.
If *you* had succeeded by obsessively focusing on customers, wouldn’t *you* trick your competitors by [saying you didn’t listen to them](http://goo.gl/jCsmC)?
[Russell Davies talks about what comes after
“digital”](http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2011/11/i-first-talked-about-post-digital-at-an-event-called-thinking-digital-in-2009-in-gateshead-looking-back-thats-probably-wh.html):
> The magic and silliness of the web can escape from behind the screen and spill into the world, sweeping away the pristine banality of mass consumer electronics in a tide of walking gonks and talking doorknobs. It’ll be stupid and brutal and glorious and fun. And designers will absolutely hate it.
He finishes by citing [a quote by Turing](http://www.meepoll.com/discuss/en/topic.php?id=1949#axzz1eypIGSLu) that suggests he was less than enthralled by computing:
> The property of being digital should be of greater interest than that of being electronic. That [computing machinery] is electronic is certainly important because these machines owe their high speed to this, and without the speed it is doubtful if financial support for their construction would be forthcoming. But this is virtually all that there is to be said on the subject.
Design isn’t how it looks OR how it works. It’s how it IS – every decision you make.