Design of the Times: How our core competencies could and should evolve

Adobe and the AIGA have partnered to create this incredibly interesting survey about the directions in which the core competencies of designers could or should evolve in the next few years.

http://designerof2015.aiga.org/

What’s particularly intriguing about this survey and telling of the zeitgeist of this design age is that 2015 not even a whole decade from now. The implication is that the evolution of design competencies starts yesterday, and that the same practices and principles apply across many and varied disciplines and, in a manner of speaking, to humanity in general.

As I navigated the survey, reflecting on my own career as a designer and my perception of the “state of things,” (society and its bubbling cauldron of meanings, beliefs, ways of doing and being) and I parsed out three key interrelated focus points around which design competencies might be organized:

Context: Designers must seek opportunities to immerse themselves in the environments (very loosely defined) lived and traveled in and shared by the consumers of the products and services of their creation. Designers will wear the hats of anthropologists, ethnographers, explorers and scientists- not just observing, but participating in the process of discovery. Designers will not just be aware, they will understand and empathize.

Content: Marshall McLuhan’s visionary assertion that the “medium is the message” may date back more than forty years, but his words ring true as ever in today’s “attention economy.” Designers are challenged with not only delivering a clear message that has measurable impact, but also with providing consumers with a selection of alternatives for accessing, processing, and disseminating the message.

Collaboration: Design thinking and design solutions do not exist in a vacuum. If, as stated above, designers themselves will be asked to wear many hats, consider that their peers in any field or discipline will likely be asked to do the same. Diverse interdisciplinary teams offer unique opportunities for nimble movement through simultaneous yet collaborative design processes. Differences of skill, approach and perspective can only be perceived as advantageous to the ultimate incarnation of the product, service, or experience.

Designers of any variety- interactive, industrial, experiential and otherwise must adopt the understanding that consumers relate to products, services and experiences of their creation in ways that extend beyond their perception of the functional value of those offerings toward the meaning(s) they attribute to them. The evolution of design competencies distinctly drives us toward the highest-order objective of creating experiences that are meaningful to our consumers, reaching the essences of what they value and believe in. Meaningful experiences do not manifest from a bigger-better-faster-more attitude;they are about tapping into something greater, something universal that transcends boundaries.

A lofty ambition, sure, but what is design if not a rise to a challenge?