Design in Tech 2016

May 25, 2016

The 2016 Design in Tech Report has again been released by John Maeda of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. As a survey contributor, I was excited to see the evolution from 2015 to this year’s publication. Again this year, Maeda focuses on the integration of Design and Technology through experience as he sites three kinds of design that are in practice today; Classic Design (Craft), Design Thinking (Business) and Computation Design (Technology).
Below are a few themes from the report that we’ve seen firsthand at Visualhero.

It is never finished.
In the report Maeda states “The notion of making something perfect, as classical designers want to achieve, runs counter to how computational systems exist. The instinct and inclination to pursue perfection is a good one, but its definition has had to evolve.”

We see this play out in our work. The problems we tackle from one project to the next are complex and ever-evolving. While we love our craft and strive to make things look great, polished, and “ done”, often our engagements involve seeking incremental value through methods like sketching, research, and prototyping. While these deliverables move the greater objective forward, we know that there is always another release or phase of the project ahead.

Not classically trained.
The report outlines how start-ups and corporations are taking the place of education. Similar to many industries, traditional education is creating new designer graduates who are not as prepared for #DesigninTech as the professional field would like. We often find ourselves looking at candidates for their hunger and character first and shaping their knowledge for the first few years.

Just as recent graduates adapt, so have established designers who are now being utilized across multiple disciplines and types of design. We are no longer single crafts people, but contributors to brands, products, services and organizational strategies – a type of work that can take many different forms and practices. We work side by side with professionals of varied backgrounds, skill sets, training levels and perspectives.

Design for change
The pace of business and change has ignited investments in design. These investments are made to achieve a variety of business objectives including talent acquisition, a new service or profit center, executive representation, and to incorporate innovation and strategy throughout organizations.

Companies are now reorganizing around this idea. Our very own story in the past few months speaks not only to the opportunity to merge Design, Business and Technology, but to help others do so through our combined offerings.

Design for scale
Large systems bring complexity. A whole section devoted to trends in public companies signifies the desire for design to manage that complexity. For example, the way companies bring things to market is fundamentally different today given the ability to instantaneously deliver a product vs. weeks of creation and distribution, shifting the time needed to deploy digitally designed products. This speed and scale leverages methods of research, iteration, prototyping, and agile across the enterprise.

Design for people
Empathy is a fundamental part of the design process. But we are only scratching the surface here. Empathy is only being used for the most obvious users of an experience.

“If the purpose of smart systems is to make sophisticated subtle decisions so people don’t have to, it is pointless if people can’t trust them to do so. This means that crafting the relationship between people and the technology we use becomes as critical as building faster processors.” —Patrick Mankins, Fast Company. This quote from page 34 of the report eludes to design building the fundamentals of a relationship to inclusion, equality and disabilities. As we become more familiar with empathy as a driver, we can expect more purposeful considerations for universal design.

Many of these principles are not new but the pace of change is just now bringing them to the forefront. It is an exciting time to be practicing design.
If you have not already you can check out the #DesigninTech Report here.