I’ve written before about [how I think about and talk about design](http:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/?p=4367). While in general I find it important to be specific about the practice you’re doing, there are some broader definitions that are useful.<\/p>\n
One that occurred to me this morning: *The first act of product design is deciding what effect you want to have in the world.*<\/p>\n
This definition sidesteps [the distinction between solving problems and cultural impact](http:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/?p=4126), and focuses not on the product but on the opportunity.<\/p>\n
We live in a fascinating time, where with [new](http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Smartphone) [tools](http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/3D_printing) we have the power to build almost anything. Meanwhile, design practice is emerging in many disciplines and fields. The question is then less about “what should we build” and more about “why should we build?” Make sure you know your answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve written before about [how I think about and talk about design](http:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/?p=4367). While in general I find it important to be specific about the practice you’re doing, there are some broader definitions that are useful. One that occurred to me this morning: *The first act of product design is deciding what effect you want to…more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,373,383],"tags":[358],"class_list":["post-5313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-leadership","category-work","tag-tagged"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wjHJ-1nH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5313"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5316,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313\/revisions\/5316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}