Most understand design as an object – a noun. We hear things like “we need a new design” or “we like that design.” And it’s only natural, it’s easier to relate to an object. Things we look at are nouns, artifacts, decoration, etc. But consider design as verb.
If you want objects designed to decorate your company’s identity, that’s easy thanks to today’s software, the internet, an opinion, and eager design school graduates. If you need to design a way to improve your sales performance, or reduce waste in your bottom line, that’s something else. I’ve noticed that whenever design becomes visual, it becomes trivial, superficial, worthy of trite contests to determine the best looking solution. Note the most recent case from the White House – even irony can be ironic apparently. Plumbers, doctors nor accountants would let you hire them this way. This thinking exists because clients ask, and designers and agencies abide.
The tragedy in this thinking is it undermines design of it’s real purpose; to improve how something works. The late Steve Jobs said this about Apple’s most misunderstood success factor: “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.” This active view of design is the kernel of a company with a market value is over 350 Billion and ridiculously profitable.
Most of you haven’t had the experience of working at a company like Apple, and some of you may never have purchased web design services. That’s ok. When buying web design services, effective buyers set specific and measurable success factors, like increase conversion rate from 2.3% to 4.0%, and give us the opportunity to design ways of achieving them. Their project briefs avoid useless adjectives like “easy to use” or subjective terms like “clean.” They skip unrealistic feature wish lists and statements like “just like apple.com.” An effective client brief is an honest assessment of their current situation filled with information about what makes their business succeed and user data to support the project. They understand that websites that succeed have to be relevant to those users vs. what your CEO thinks after looking at it for a minute.
Regardless of one person’s opinion, a “clean” looking website like Apple’s won’t ensure your success, but designing a better way for your customers to understand your product and easy way for them buy, like Apple has, will. Those differences in managing design is quite different, like the differences between nouns and verbs.