Let’s look beyond writing better AI prompts and optimising processes. Let’s ask the big questions: How do we define and decide what ‘Design’ will be given AI? How will data + design integrate? How should Digital Product teams and leaders evolve to shape a new AI augmented world?

The world is in a constant state of flux, but there are moments where we as a collective, stand witness to the ‘tipping point’ — a build-up of small but significant steps over the years that finally culminate in a global shift, impacting people, businesses, politics, economies, communities, and culture.

Today we see three big shifts, or forces, that will contribute to the next ‘tipping point’: 🤖 Artificial Intelligence, 🌍 sustainability, and decentralisation of the internet (✨ web3).

But what does AI mean for the Design and the Digital Product industry? …and what are we going to do about it?

[This article is based on the Design Forecast Report created by Design3 that can be downloaded here. ]

The Transformative Potential of AI in Design and Product ⚡️

“I want AI to take our jobs, our jobs are boring! Design is stuck in the rut of customer journey mapping, and we desperately need to get out of it.”

— Global VP of Design, Digital Consulting

The promise of AI hyper-optimisation and efficiency, comes with concerns around loss of jobs and value across industries. This also holds true for the digital design and product industry. But what does this mean in terms of practical application — in the way we build teams, foster leadership, up-skill and rethink our methods and tools?

While these concerns are real, this is in fact, the opportunity for Designers to truly be at the forefront of creative innovation and problem solving, with tools and data, like never before.

… but to play this important role, they will need to get involved early and not just create with AI, but shape AI itself.

In the near future there is going to be a significant shift in behaviour — the way information will be retained and retrieved — for consumers and for creators. This implies digital design and Product, will need to up-skill, and the roles themselves, evolved. There are potentially three key pillars to this:

🖥️ Democratisation of Design in Product Teams

AI will, and with utmost certainty, democratise the design process, speeding up iterations and enabling discovery and delivery at scale and so determining clear AI + Design quality guidelines — what good design looks like — should be one of the most important tasks the creative industry needs to collectively undertake today

🧮 The importance of data-driven decision making

“People always want to jump straight on the AI bandwagon, and they often forget that in order to understand or build with AI, they need to start with data.”

- Data & AI Product Management Expert, Design3

With AI maturity, the reliance on data-driven decision making is going to be greater. Design and product decisions should be informed with data, and efficiency enhanced by AI tools, but there must continue to be a reliance on human instinct, industry experience and creativity.

⚙️ Redefining the design process

There are five key phases to consider while determining this new approach to design and cross-functional collaboration:

The design process needs to be redefined with several key considerations — a few of which are highlighted here (download the report for all)— for product managers and the shift towards data experiences and data needs.

• Teams are trained together and in the same manner to ensure a greater understanding of the different processes from design to development. This will create a common set of vocabulary and skills across roles that will in-turn enable these teams to work efficiently together.
• Utilise AI tools to conduct extensive market research, user behaviour analysis, and trend forecasting at scale and speed, surpassing traditional research methods
• Embrace the lean innovation approach over design thinking to continuously experiment and test new ideas and enhancements
• It is more pressing than ever for design leaders to be mandated to restructure their teams, articulate new methods and advocate a culture of innovation and creativity, not just within their teams, but across the business.
• Migrating from design thinking and double diamonds to creating a hybrid approach that incorporates the working methods of data scientists and product managers.
• Develop proactive risk management strategies for AI projects, to identify potential ethical, technical, and operational risks early in the development process and mitigating them effectively.

“We have a responsibility as designers to consider the broader impact of our work, prioritizing human-centric design principles in an AI augmented future.”
 — Head of UX, Legal Technology Business

Onwards & Upwards 🚀

“From a business perspective, what’s going to happen is you’re going to need to have a stratification of supply. So really good content, really good design, good visuals and good ideas will have to surface to the top because demand is finite.”

— Growth Strategy Executive, Global Social Media Company

In an era where it feels that Artificial Intelligence and data-driven ROI measures can kill radical new ideas, creativity and innovation — companies that seek growth and competitive advantage will have to rely on those who can see beyond the data-led binary approach to problem solving — and to those that can find new ideas, create novel experiences and discover new challenges that others may not be able to. This is where Design should define its value.

The decisions we will make today shape the design industry now but also the future for the next generation of designers. While this may feel overwhelming and a daunting task, for now, having read this article, and the potentially the report behind it, perhaps the question to really ask yourself is this:

What do you want your design practice to stand for?

This article is based on the Design Forecast Report created by Design3 which can be downloaded here.

This report has been written with the global digital design and product industry in mind.

🛠️ It aims to be as practical and actionable as possible, and in doing so, potentially helpful to you in your current context and role.

It start with a critique of the Design industry, current and future, followed by the five key phases to consider when evolving your design process due to AI. All interlaced with potential 🪄Action Points for you to integrate in your practice…

These days when we think about the latest evolution of Design we might think; Human-centred Design, Product Design, Service Design or Strategic Design… perhaps even Systems, Organisational or Business Design. Where Design goes next, and in fact, what design is or will become is a topic that I’ve always been interested in (and written several Medium articles on along with an MBA thesis). Now I have a more specific, possible idea — Design3.

Design3 is a term I’m coining/inventing here as that (necessary) complement to the recent emergence of Web3. Web3, or Web3.0 the decentralised Web (unlike Web 1.0 — websites on servers, and Web 2, user generated content via social, hence also owned/controlled by a few choice powerful players), is where no, one person or entity has the power — due to the very fact that everyone does(!). This is of course what underpins such things as Blockchain, Crypto Currencies, NFTs etc.

But this new phase is Tech-Led — apt considering that it is about technology at the core enabling that decentralisation, but this has also meant that many times it has become a solution looking for a problem.

How often have you heard someone say;
“Blockchain is cool, let’s use that/throw that at __x__ ! 💪”

That’s where Design (needs to) come in. Design is about problem solving, about humanising and bringing that focus and balance to the technology.

But I’m not stopping at creating the term ‘Design3’; while the term I hope turns prevalent, I’ve also created it as an entity, a vehicle, a movement. Design3, the venture, is a community and education play. It is a place where Designers can come together to share and learn, content and opinion. Web3 needs Design and Designers, but right now there is no one body that brings Designers looking to shape Web3 together, in a way that is holistic and with genuine design principles as its ethos.

Want to find out more and register? Then take a trip here 👉 www.design3.io

But I’m equally keen that its not just another organic community. There needs to be, and will be; thought leadership, content with substance, a community of experts, money behind the creativity (investors & incubator), and an ecosystem for people to find their design-led, web3 roles. It’s great for businesses too — allowing them access to talent, having an ear to the ground of the latest ideas and emerging trends and being seen as on the forefront of the industry.

Where better to be inspired and draw from, on what this ‘d3 school’ might be, than the original, Bauhaus.

This diagram, references the Bauhaus curriculum — not that design3 offers a structured course, or accreditation (yet), but what it is keen to imply is that we believe that Design for Web3 needs to build on the skills and context present in the previous incarnations of established Design.

One component that may seem a little different from the rest (i.e. not tech-led), is that of Sustainability. Anything and everything we do in Design, particularly in Web3, should be underpinned by thinking about this. But it is not just about things like lower energy consumption by servers who run blockchains or green software. It is also about ethics, society, a vector understanding of Value. Let’s truly think, as per the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ — about People ❤️, Planet🌍 & Profit 📈.

But of course, Web3 will present very different challenges, and hence will require Designers to accumulate and hone a very different set of skills (much like the latest forays into Service & Strategic design have driven Designers to think beyond colour, composition, material etc.). We’re now going to have to start thinking about how we Design for Trust when transacting with Crypto Currency. We’re going to have to start thinking how do we ‘design’ AI, and ethics into AI? We’re going to have to start thinking, what is the human-experience in the Metaverse?

… all questions I’m not claiming to know the exact answers to, but I do know that the Design industry and Designers need to up-skill and start thinking about what comes next, and start shaping it early so as to keep things relevant and valuable for people, to build the new, very different products & services of the future.

The danger we need to avoid is that Design plays as a follower and just ends up branding new start-ups, making fancier webpages for web3 ventures, or delivers (hopefully solid) UX for d.Apps. We can see that Design needs to get involved at deeper layers:

Let’s look at it this way — 
Do you know what ‘good’ Design looks like in Web3?

Neither do we (yet), but we want to bring designers, and design evangelists together to work it out, and make sure Design has a seat at the Decentralised Table. DeDe -Decentralised Design- another term to coin, needs to be born. 💥

Anish Joshi
Founder, Design3

Anish is also a strategic advisor for design, digital & innovation for Shell before which he’s helped build (from scratch) and lead, Design & Innovation for Shell’s Digital Innovation Hubs globally. Anish has been a designer, and design leader both in consulting and client side, having a diverse range of projects, both craft and strategic across a range of industries. He has a bachelors and masters in design from Brunel University London, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School. He gives talks and lectures at universities and conferences to champion how Design can change business and the world.

Design3 — the future of Design 🛸 was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Controversial? Perhaps. The implication here isn’t that we should be basing our designs or solutions (purely) around business ambitions, the Hippo (highest paid person in the room), or even a designer’s indulgent whim. The origins of this thought (and hence article) are born from how human-centred design is playing out in the real world and the results it’s generating, rather than disagreeing with it as a philosophy or ideology.

So, what went wrong? I’ve seen in the places I’ve worked, the digital design industry generally, and in the wider realms/companies that digital and strategic designers touch, something happening… which isn’t ‘bad’ per say, yet it’s something I always feel short-changes the real and fundamental value Design can bring.

Through the discovery and research of a problem space, various findings are identified, and insights found. There are hence needs surfaced and pain-points highlighted. (The best manifestation of this would be an as-is journey map where literally the according swim lane spotlights the unhappy/pain points in a journey… just waiting and asking to be solved!). This is a great start. We should absolutely start with the human actor, and the context. It’s what happens next - many-a-time we go about ‘solving’ or resolving these pains, point-by-point.

The umbrella thinking here seems right — we found the pains, and are ticking them off; et voila, we’ve put humans at the centre, and solved things for them, job done (well?).

But this approach misses a trick. What if we rewind back further, zoom out? What if we say, OK, I see your pains, needs, opportunities — but rather than take that as the starting point, let us instead start from scratch, ideate afresh on the global opportunity/problem statement? Then what we can do is check whether this all-new, ‘fresh’ design, either solves those pains, or, more likely, bypasses the original scenario(s) altogether so that those initial pain-points never even have the opportunity to arise (!). This is about taking a different scale view of a ‘problem-solution fit’. Let’s not spot a pain/problem and just solve that point. We need to zoom out and create a solution that makes all existing problems redundant. (Yes, appreciated — it may create new and other ones, but this is an iterative process, … too be ironed out.)

Modern day, human centred, experience/service design is democratised in such a way that barriers to entry are low (i.e. little craft ability/skill and mastery thereof), hence, particularly, business analysts, management consultants, or knowledge workers generally are practicing it. (In many ways this is a good thing, really). What this does mean however is that they are naturally executing; research, personas, journeys, blueprints, etc. Yes, perhaps at more of a tool level (where designers practice more at a mindset one), but this can be, and is often seen as everything/enough to traditional or mainstream workplaces. Using these tools, they will rightly find those pain points and as intelligent humans seek to solve them.

Because of this, many times these questions are asked: “Why do I need a designer? I can have my existing, generalist staff do this. What’s special about a designer? What exactly are they bringing to the table above and beyond?” — They have every right to ask these questions.

The key here is I expect/hope Design and Designers to be able to ‘solve’ or create things in more than the piece-meal, granular way that these tools afford, and that those that only use the tools (at that transactional level) do. We designers have to show that what we do is somehow different, or beyond this.

It’s easy to say, but more difficult to prove: We say designers (naturally) do the research, find the findings, and develop the insights in a much more nuanced, empathetic, special way, and then it’s our embedded, creative skills at developing something that hasn’t been thought of or done before, originally, elegantly, inspirationally, that makes the difference. This is what one should be seeking and paying the money for (and hence why it’s not just a case of leaving to ‘anyone’.) For this to stick, we do need to move away from the trap of point solutioning in this HCD model — after all, ‘anyone’ can do that.

How do we reset the way we do this?

We need Human-Inspired Design.

What this means is, we absolutely start with the research and be human first. But then we use that at a wider level, as a foundation from which to be ‘inspired’ from, to build on. It is then about the ‘magic’ of the design mindset — to take that ‘source code’ and weave it into something much more original and special (negating, and making redundant the aforementioned pain points).

For those of you who are thinking — human-centred design does mean the same as the equation; perhaps. As mentioned, that this flow was born not out of the opposition to the ideology, but the practical execution of it. It was because of this, I wanted to pull it apart, and draw out that specific ‘Inspiration’ and ‘Magic’ component of this design process that the human-centred variant doesn’t specifically celebrate.

Many companies and organisations, particularly consultancies, often ask; ‘So you have the pain points, now tell me, step by step in a codified way how do you ‘come up with’ or generate a solution?’ — but sometimes not everything can be codified into a replicable, repeatable process.

Wait wait, wait, I hear you cry, “I really want to do this — be more original and creative, and come up with totally new stuff… It’s my client or company that won’t let me! They just want the safer, incremental solution, and that too because they need it fast/by yesterday — I’m just not given the opportunity to try something new”.

I know. I sympathise. It’s not one that can be solved so easily. It is very much the way of the modern (especially corporate) world. All I can hope for is that we try. At every opportunity, if we as designers get a chance to offer something truly new or original, take it.

Funnily enough I always advocate a desirability, viability and feasibly approach and I always say that we absolutely should balance all three. And so, I should temper my passion of the above with — well, actually, that incremental, non-crazy, non out-there approach might be the ‘right’ one (!)i.e. to deliver value earlier, quicker, and be able to be done easier. In fact, it is probably this construct that drives the original point of incremental problem-solving design. There is of course a more difficult picture to see here (for some) — that a new original solution may deliver much more value in the long run. The trick is how do we highlight this as the rigorous innovation approach with the potential higher ROI or IRR that it might be?

It’s time to move on. The leaders of strategic and digital design have been ‘putting the customer/person’ at the ‘heart of everything they do’, or at the ‘centre’ (figuratively & literally) of multiple diagrams with a plethora of things surrounding them. Companies are excited by this proposition because it is a cornerstone of good CX, and that means more basket size, revenue, acquisition, loyalty, market share etc. This is all a given and an established, on-going journey. What comes next?

Designers need to drive for disruptive, creative, original design. The realism lens must still be built in however — the springboard of doing this human Inspired design is after all based on the real-world learnings and insights from a broad discovery workstream, across Desirability (absolutely), Viability and Feasibility.

The other side to the realism coin is that as a new concept is being developed it is constantly checked against and with all the humans in the ecosystem. There doesn’t need to be a concentric solution, with humans in the centre, but one where humans are omnipresent and intrinsic into each design-driven stream of thought and work.

If you’re still thinking — “Ok, I get it, but what you’re describing is just human-centred design, there are 6 minutes of my life I’m not going to get back” ;) Then the point is I’m looking to stress is the underlying spirit/essence — that we give users and customers not just everything they thought they wanted, but what they really needed and didn’t know they needed, and didn’t believe it was possible to go about it in this surprising way.

It’s time to be inspired.

It’s time to design from our hearts — but just make sure it’s validated, actually feasible, and indeed delivers on business/organisational value… because if it doesn’t in today’s world, it rarely gets realised.

Anish Joshi
I lead the design & innovation proposition for Royal Dutch Shell’s global Digital Innovation Hubs — having helped create them from scratch. I’ve been a designer, and design leader in consulting and client side, having a diverse range of projects, both craft and strategic. I have a bachelors and masters in design from Brunel University London, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School. I give talks and lectures at universities and conferences to a plethora of professions, to champion how Design can change business and the world.

Let’s do human-inspired design, not human-centred design was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We hear a lot about Design Thinking, Strategic Design and Service Design. I’m not going to go into the potential danger that this democratisation of design is bringing to the wider Design industry — I cover it in a couple of my other blogs ‘Design thinking isn’t design, it’s design thinking’ and ‘Dangerous times in Design’.

The (difficult) question I’m going to ask here is;

Who are the people best placed to do strategic & service design work?

Now, on pure face value, literally reading as a label, the word ‘Design’ is in the title, so Designers would be the natural answer, yes? Well kind of.

If you dig deeper into design thinking; and take it as ‘a human centred approach to solving problems, for business, organisations, governments etc’, then quite rightly we should ask; would it not be the case that anyone could potentially do this? Similarly, could they not take this lens and combine it with certain ways of workings and some straight forward tools, to define and design services? Yes they could…

After all, we’re not talking about the raw craft, aesthetic intuition or functional ability, associated with ‘real’* design which requires a specific inherent ability (or at least passion) and a long learned and earned mastery… this is ‘just’ about thinking in a certain way.

So the answer here is that potentially anyone,could do strategic/service design. (* I’m sailing close to wind on this 😎)

Now it gets really interesting. We now have the options/answers of either ‘designers’ or ‘anyone’… but there is course an option C; both. Which I think it is, but it is more nuanced than that, and here is where my Tipping Point model — a sliding scale with an inflection point — comes in.

When a Designer, who in theory, is more likely (I am not saying always or absolutely) to be a better critical, creative, and human centred thinker comes to solve a problem, they need to get familiar with that subject matter and area of expertise on which to apply his or her skill. This takes time, research and interest to get the base knowledge; and let’s face it, it is unlikely the designer will be able to understand the subject area (within the project lifespan) to as great a depth as someone working in that area day in and day out, perhaps for a long period of time. But in theory, they can absorb enough (researching others, macro trends etc.) and solve…

Now let’s come from the other side. We have e.g. someone that is the SME in the business area, a generalist management consultant, or perhaps a Product Owner/Product Manager tasked with creating a product to solve a problem. They have the inherent knowledge of the business or a wider skillset but they’ve just never had the training or experience of using a design thinking lens to tackle their challenge. So, and I simplify greatly, there are a bunch of tools, and exercises, that strategic and service designers use e.g. personas, blueprints, empathy maps etc. whose theory and use can be taught relatively easily. So bam, all of these generalists/other professionals can be ‘designers’ (!) and hence solve the challenge… well, no, not really either!

Let me set this stall out first — Just the act of knowing how to do, use and complete, a set of strategic design tools DOES NOT make them a designer and also, it DOES NOT mean that the problem has been solved to the BEST version of itself. I can’t express enough that doing and using design tools is NOT a tick box exercise. It is not about ‘fill it out to complete’ as a necessary part of a process.

To unlock the real power of design problem solving, it is not just the better use of the tools and processes, but the operating at the values and mindset level.

Just because you know how to use Microsoft Word, does not make you an author. Knowing Excel formulas does not make you an accountant. And so knowing how to fill in a journey map, does not make you a designer.

It is all about the creativity and content of the actual idea within the artefact, which defines and illustrates the actions to be take or thing to be built– this is the value– not the act of binary doing. And to this extent, a Designer, who has spent years building this inherent creativity and human thinking is probably better placed to solve the problem and shape a solution better than the generalist/other professional that turns the handle to output design exercises as an incremental pain point solver…. But, not always (!)

… there however must be a point, as we ‘slide along this scale’, where the generalist/other professional, who has that deeper knowledge, and is educated properly in the ways of doing design thinking and service design — to a more intrinsic level — is actually better at creating a potential solution (than the designer 😯).

And this is the crux of the model; the tipping point. A Designer is not always the best option for solving a problem in a human centred way. Equally, a generalist/other profession/SME, that just picks up and uses design tools like all other tools, is not the best either.

Designers — if you think strategic design is a realm reserved just for you, I’m afraid not.

Other professionals — if you think you can just pick up strategic design like any other general skill, then I’m afraid not.

Where does this thinking lead? Pulling some diagrams from my MBA thesis (How will new directions of design change the future of business); I show a couple of stepping stone phases first, that I think a company/organisation may need to go through, but the final one, where design is intrinsic, is the one I would advocate…

RE: the CDO (Design leader) position — this is the pinnacle, critical position and a great deal of thought should be given as to whether this is a business person that (hopefully) has true design thinking sensibilities, or whether it should be a real designer, who can actually make (not just craft, but create) and has enough company and/or industry knowledge to make the design’s application impactful.

Absolutely, design thinking should be taught (driven by the CDO) and adopted at a values, mindset and cultural level (not just tools and processes), such that every person in an organisation weaves a human centred thought process into everything that they do — this then writes itself into policy and organisational culture. But, there is also a place for a SWAT team. This is a special function and capability of professional strategic designers that are called in for the really hard problems (still working with people in the business area, not by themselves for sure) and for those more adjacent and transformational opportunities too.

I have had many conversations with non-designers, who, after finding out about Design Thinking and Service Design, jump to — ‘I want to be a service designer!’ They/you probably don’t need to be. I get it, the refreshing approach of design thinking, compared to the norm, and corporate ways, makes a nice change and which appeals to the need to do things differently. BUT, the best and most effective use and impact for many people, is actually just to incorporate design thinking techniques into their day jobs.They don’t need to actually start a whole new career.

There is enough space for both camps to play, but each need to appreciate the value of the other. When that product owner or business analyst thinks that they can do all the activities that a service designer can do; it’s not that simple — this isn’t transactional working. And equally, when a service designer thinks they’re the one and only to solve that problem, don’t underestimate the knowledge and power of other professionals, who have those deeper building blocks (hence the branch of thinking of ‘Design as facilitator’), but have just not the honed skill to unlock the creativity enclosed within.

*Please contact me if you wish to use or share the models & diagrams shown in this article.

Anish Joshi
I head up and lead the design and innovation proposition for Royal Dutch Shell -helping to create and run Digital Innovation Labs around the world. I’ve been a designer in consulting and client side, having done a diverse range of projects, both craft and strategic. I have a bachelors and masters in design from Brunel University London, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School. I give talks and lectures at universities and conferences to a plethora of professions, all about how strategic design is changing business and the world.

I interview many people and often apologise before I ask the clichéd question of, “How do you define Service Design, and how do you define UX Design — what is it that makes them different?”

UX Design (Experience Design), fuelled by the rise of digital, has become more established these days with some great work being done the field. It has naturally been expanding into the realms of ‘Service Design’*, but I’ve noticed that what constitutes people’s understanding of Service Design, and a Service Designer, appears to misalign with what I believe the criteria and components are.

* there is also a route into Service Design (to a lesser extent) from the other direction, i.e. where businesses are trying to shape services from a human-centred viewpoint.

To help illustrate how I see it, here’s a quick model I drew up.

At its centre and start point is what I think and hope everyone agrees is definitely UX Design -as thought of in the market place (there is of course more than this, and that’s what we will explore). This is the practice of creating a digital function, process or experience at a touch point; commonly illustrated through journeys, user stories, flows, wireframes and screens (or of course these days, also audio, VR etc.).

Now, I’ve noticed 4 dimensions, or 4 components, through which, when people cross or perform, they believe they have moved from the world of UX Design into Service Design.

First — Research

I’ve noticed that the act of doing research, yes, more generative, wider, ethnographic and behaviour research, and not the more evaluative, narrower research normally associated with testing for a touchpoint solution, has started to be seen as ‘Service Design’. In my book this is still just Research. Invaluable and necessary, and all the better for it being wider in scope and depth, but it is still Research.

Let’s be clear, Research does not equal Service Design, although that generative, holistic level of research is the critical starting/building blocks for good Service Design.

Research is and should be an essential for UX design; its scope is up to you. So if you’re doing research, you’re still in the realm of (good) UX Design.

Next — Physical Vs Digital

Some start suggesting that once we start looking beyond the digital interface (screen, voice, or virtual), then this becomes Service Design. I think if we look at the literal word ‘Experience’ the clue is in there. Our experiences are always made up of more than interactions with digital objects. The physical — whether that be products, or spaces, or conversations, is absolutely key in our perception of an experience.

So even if you’re defining and designing both the physical and digital, that’s still UX design. They are both delivering an experience to the end user/customer.

Again, thinking about the physical aspects of any experience, is a key part of service design, but by itself it is not/not equal to Service Design.

Singular Vs Multi Touchpoint

Next, I’ve seen that when the design of something expands beyond looking at a singular touchpoint of interaction, and across a multi or omni-channel journey; where a user has a variety of interactions, with different devices (or people, or systems, or business areas) then this is seen as Service Design.

Closer and warmer, but not quite. While this level of thinking has reached more holistic heights and covers a multitude of exchanges along a journey, it is still predominantly looking at how the person (user, employee, customer) is experiencing, or acting with, something, to result in an outcome.

Good UX should automatically consider the experience of a user or customer across the whole journey regardless of path or medium.

Again, thinking end-to-end through a whole journey, and over multiple use cases, is the bedrock of good Service Design, but by itself solely, it isn’t Service Design.

Front stage Vs Back stage

Now we’re talking. This (in my book) is where experience design makes the hop skip and jump into Service Design. Again if we look literally, it reads as ‘the design of a service’. The key here is that a Service, is both the experience that is delivered, as well as the back-stage, internal nuts and bolts workings (whether by a business or organisation) that needs to be defined and take place so that it can deliver on that front-of-stage experience. In this way, the experience is the effect of designing that service.

This is the crux of Service design. It is the behind the scenes goings-on (processes, governance, organisational structures, change management, policies, culture even) that need to be designed and crafted in a human centred way such that a human centred front-of-stage experience can be delivered. And to do this well, that person needs to have a greater sense of business knowledge & acumen, blended with the core talents of being a designer; creativity, critical thinking and collaboration.

This is the dimension that needs to be crossed to qualify as Service Design.

[To clarify; front stage does not have to be a customer or external user, but could also be an internal employee i.e where UX is EX. The backstage is the functionings or the mechanisms that facilitate that/any experience like the elements of change management, governance etc mentioned above]

Now, by going through this arc, what I am also saying and agreeing with, is that Service Design DOES indeed include key elements such as generative research, ‘beyond the digital’ thinking, and end-to-end, multi media shaping, but just that any one of these, or even all three of them, do not equate to Service Design itself. They are the foundations and the keystones, but one must look at how we design the backstage service/process to be Service Designers.

… and if we continue along this dimension’s trajectory we will get to business design, but that’s for another blog.

Anish Joshi
I head up and lead the design and innovation proposition for Royal Dutch Shell -helping to create and run Digital Innovation Labs around the world. I’ve been a designer in consulting and client side, having done a diverse range of projects, both craft and strategic. I have a bachelors and masters in design from Brunel University London, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School. I give talks and lectures at universities and conferences to a plethora of professions, all about how strategic design is changing business and the world.

While I naturally ask myself many questions around ‘What design is today’ and ‘The impact of design thinking for businesses and design’, these must of course be considered hand-in-hand with ‘Who and what is the designer of today*?’ … not in a philosophical sense, but I am keen to consider and investigate the particular dimensions and characteristics that different designers possess and how they vary across genres.

*So as not to confuse, I’ll set the control volume of my discussion to be designers that are more in the digital and strategic realm as opposed to those that work in more established and craft orientated design fields. Equally I am not including those people that are just/only ‘human-centred thinkers’ (at the other end), but I will be using them both as reference points.

The anatomy of a diagram

I’ve taken and simplified (all design and) designers to embody 4 key capability traits:

• Business understanding- in terms of knowledge around business, strategic design applied to business, design thinking, and holistic human centred problem solving.
• Psychology– the ability to understand and empathise with humans. To look at ergonomics (cognitive) and create solutions that are driven by and align with human behaviour and emotion.
• Problem Solving [Function] — the ability to create and structure a product or process so as to deliver a desired outcome to the problem or question set. Normally a manifestation of a methodological approach to change inputs into desired outputs.
• Craft [Form]– the ability to create physical and visual artefacts with a comprehension (and perhaps mastery) of colour, contrast, type, feature, shape, balance, material and manufacture.

These dimensions whilst different, are not necessarily orthogonal — in that e.g. Psychology of course does entail some degree problem solving. I am just seeing /positioning them each as unique enough from the others to be a discrete skill.

Here I have illustrated, purely at a relative level (not based off any numerical data), but on the encounters I have had with many, many designers — from working with them to interviewing them, the relative magnitude of each of these capability traits. [Readers, I appreciate these may be slightly different in your book, but I hope the logic and flow hold true]

i) We see that strategic designers (e.g. service designers) have (or at least need to have) a much greater understanding of business. The particularly good ones have a psychology affinity also, as driving business solutions through a human centred approach means really appreciating the people in the ecosystem. If they did not, they would be much more like business analysts and business process engineers. Many (but not all) strategic designers do not have craft abilities, and many of them do not come from design backgrounds. This leads to the question, is what they do design? and, are they designers? (But that’s a whole other blog: see Dangerous Times in Design)

ii) UX designers may not have as much business knowledge and understanding (although of course, having it is beneficial). The psychology now needed is of a slightly different flavour and really considers expectations and aspirations around interactions (as is the problem solving). UX designers can (and do have craft) although it is not necessarily a given.

iii) UI designers are much more based in the craft of design; however, it would be wrong to say that they do not possess strong problem solving and psychological abilities — they just have very different flavours of these criteria. It becomes the psychology around perception and affordance and problem solving at moments, rather than at a holistic level. Now, we consider this to be ‘Design’ very easily/happily, but should the definition of a Designer now suggest that even UI designers, need to have a much broader capability such that they can be considered ‘modern’ designers?

… while the remit was to consider the main professions in ‘new’ design, it is interesting to look either side also…

· Consultants (managment or otherwise) and people within business that have the title or the capability of ‘Design Thinking’, and those that more generally adopt a human centred approach to problem solving (see my other blog: ‘Design thinking isn’t Design, its Design Thinking’.) Now we should draw the line somewhere, so I would say that these people are not designers, but of course they do (or automatically will) encompass some of the characteristics highlighted here. We could (and perhaps should) start asking the question ‘how much’ of each dimension does there need to be ( i.e. how big do the circle in the diagram need have to be) before we do say they are designers?

· Designers from the established fields; let’s take this to be the likes of product, fashion, interior, automotive etc. It is inaccurate to label them all under one umbrella as such — the nuance lost is great, but what this column shows is the greater extension of the dimensions’ trend. [NB it is not to say that these designers are not strategic, but just that their design process is not the director of their business product]

Practically, this diagram is there just to illustrate that these dimensions do changes across different design disciplines.

Design and designers have evolved in new directions and what was once easy to pigeon hole, now certainly isn’t. The question to ponder is how much of each (dimension) qualifies someone as a designer, and which sort?

I like to keep my blogs real world and practical — So where is this dissection going?

The modern-day designer is a complicated being.

Designers now are more complex, with more fundamentally different skills and expectations than ever before. With the likes of design thinking, service design and digital design ‘stretching’ the remit of what is considered ‘design’, the building blocks of designers too has diversified.

This makes trying to judge what is good design and who is a ‘good’ (it is subjective, although I have always thought there are some objective components within it) designer, ever more difficult. This result of this I have seen manifested in how enterprises and consultancies are choosing to hire design talent both for their permanent teams and as contractors.

Design is fluid enough that just by a person having the appropriate design label (of e.g. UX designer), it does not instantly make them above a certain quality threshold. (It is unlike medicine or law, whereby only after a certain education, qualification, performance and experience can you call yourself that profession). In theory anyone can ‘call’ themselves a designer… so how else have I seen people decipher?

Brand names. I believe that sometimes more corporate/commercial people hire designers based on where they have worked before. This does of course make sense at one level, but, by default, relies on the fact that the previous ‘big brand’ has judged well. That the past employer who may hold great kudos in the marketplace or even enterprise prestige, is somehow consistent with their ability to be a great judge on what makes good design and a good designer. Dangerous.

(Arguably) one of the best ways to judge, is for another trusted, professional designer, to evaluate that potential new hire. Only someone from the field, who has done, or at least seen ‘good’ design would be better placed to judge. Not that it should be this person’s decision only — the original hiring person would after all be much better placed to see if the new person is right for the team, department and business overall.

Design and Designers are in a difficult and exciting time. New designers have great opportunities to be in places of influence in businesses (and governments) in a way more than traditional designers ever had, but equally, corporation’s inability to judge designers who are put in these places of responsibility have the potential to damage the industry as a whole.

Anish Joshi
I head up design and innovation; creating and running Innovation Labs around the world for Royal Dutch Shell, Global Commercial and Chemicals. I’ve been a designer both consulting and client side, having done a diverse range of projects, both craft and strategic. I have a bachelors and masters in design from Brunel University London, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School. I give talks and lectures at universities and conferences to a plethora of professions, all about how strategic design is changing business and the world.

Musings of a conflicted designer

Whenever people ask me what I do, and I say I’m a designer, I dread the difficult, complex narrative, I know I’m going to have to spool, to answer that inevitable, subsequent question, “What sort of design do you do?” This is commonly accompanied by (trying to helpful) suggestions of fashion, interior etc.? I’ve truncated my response these days to “strategic and digital stuff”, which of course does little justice to design’s latest exciting incarnation.

What I’m talking about, is that I manage and do more strategic work through design thinking*, human centred innovation, service design, UX and UI design. What probably muddies the waters further is that I have an MBA; which then meanders my explanation into “Basically I can design you anything from a venture to a visual”

[*If you’re not familiar with this topic, my brief soundbite would be ‘Design Thinking’ is when you abstract design to being a thinking (and doing!) methodology and mindset that looks to problem solve through empathy, creativity and ideation, delivering value to all people in an ecosystem and the business itself. It starts with understanding the needs (known and latent), pains and aspirations of people and then sets about addressing them through what is technically feasible as well as viable for the business or organisation. It is what designers think and do, but applied to scenarios, strategies, services and businesses rather than physical (or digital) products. — This encompasses much of Tim Brown’s (IDEO) official definition but I take a step by step approach when introducing it, as it good to join the dots from design as craft to design as thinking]

All this got me thinking… as Design expands into the realms of solving complex business problems, strategic scenarios, customer experience and services; What is ‘Design’ (with a capital D ) today, and who are ‘Designers’?

First I introspect.
Does the design I do right now align with why I became a designer in the first place? Do I fulfil my raison d’être? Does that passion for creativity surface in what I do day-to-day? Perhaps.
My trouble is, in my definition of design (dated as it might be?), its fabric also includes the craft of making and being original in that mindset i.e. I still expect design to have aesthetic and physical quality; colour, composition, balance, material, elegance, form, function, dynamism, emotion, cognition.
This is why I became a designer, but somewhere in ‘growing up’, I found that the ‘design thinking’ part of equation allowed me to fundamentally change and shape more in the world. This is what businesses are calling out for — it may of course turn out to be a fad, it’s certainly a buzzword.

Is Design the right word ?

With the establishment and growth of Service design and Design thinking, design has opened itself up to new worlds. People from non-traditional design backgrounds — that is, those that have not had formal design training or qualifications, or that have a grounding in the ‘traditional’ craft facets of design, can become practitioners of this new field. Once design has been democratised to the level of logic, user-centricity and empathy only (and separated from the ability and skill to craft and shape aesthetically, functionally and emotionally), then the potential for almost anyone to enter the field is huge. While this is still of course a net positive for any organisation and design in general, it suggests that anyone can be a ‘designer’ just by the advocacy and utilisation of a simple mindset and a handful of tools.

I have had coffees with many people that say — I heard your talk on design / read about it on the net /was introduced to it at my business school and I want to be a designer!
Generally this is a good thing. I could never begrudge anyone from design but these days I am explicit; they may not need to be a designer, just incorporate design thinking into what they do. This aspiration stems from the trigger that these people have suddenly seen how a design point of view is refreshingly different to the way their business or professional world traditionally operates. Being more human excites them, and as that dimension is fundamental to living, coupled with that the design thinking tools (in their structure) are easy to pick up, the barriers to entry are low — the grass is looking a particularly striking Chartreuse green [#7FFF00–127,255,0] on the other side.

The key is that the design thinking mindset needs to become part of what everyone does (everyone should be a design thinker), but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to become, or is, a ‘Designer’.

A ‘designer’ (in my subjective book) is someone quite different.
I say this, but some people from psychology, computing, business and particular arts backgrounds make for very good designers… given the right timely experience. This isn’t black and white, the world rarely is. Many people can enter the field from different points and become designers, but only if they adopt it more holistically; Design is a lifestyle.

But the point is, this is not the failing. The failing is the contra.
The act of solving business and strategic problems in a human centred, empathetic, creative way, is not necessarily ‘Design’. It is, and can be done very well by trained professional designers of course (and hence here we are!), but it is not exclusive to that profession. It is a way of thinking, a mindset, a culture, a method, a process and a set of tools that are a powerful way to improve business and life.

How business centric does design really need to get then?

Identity crisis. Should designers then stick to doing (traditional) design? While we’re at the start of this strategic design curve, designers are best placed to bring about change. Design projects normally involve designers utilising their skills and acting as facilitators to get the most and best out of people who have that contextual knowledge … but at a certain point, the problem may be better tackled by educating those people with the knowledge, with the tools of design thinking. Here Design is the secondary, enabling component. There is a point at which traditional designers may not be the best placed to tackle these problems.

Am I being ignorant / stuck in the past / showing inertia ?
Is this the Design of the time?

With the emergence of the Bauhaus and the Eames’ pushing design into new frontiers in the 20th Century, there must have been skeptics, perhaps anchored in their arts & crafts traditions? In fact when I first heard about design thinking, I too was skeptical and cynical. Design was most certainly about the aesthetics, the craft, the form and function… surely? But I did make that jump to abstraction, drank the kool-aid and probably got caught up in the opportunities that the new design discipline gave me. I have no regrets, I think.

There is good reason to believe that Design Thinking, is now very much Design. Not that the traditional design professions have been replaced in any way…

What now?

On the one hand, Design has found itself in a critical and coveted position where it has genuine influence in business with a much greater power to fundamentally shape (It has always been a valuable component, but normally at the level of product design, or the creative within marketing and advertising)… on the other, this new direction no longer leverages its old foundations and opens the door to all, potentially allowing the profession to be reduced to a process. This is what I call McDesign, something I go into more detail about in my MBA thesis — ‘How will new directions in Design shape the future of business?’.

Why did I write this article — for therapy? Perhaps.
But I’m not looking for agreement to these points of view, but more to put the questions out there, of whether this new direction of design puts the profession at jeopardy? Should it always encompass the craft components? Should it necessarily be done by ‘Designers’ and who really are they?

Dangerous times in Design was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many people in the world and business still see ‘Design’ as that thing which makes things look good, function well, and perhaps have an emotive quality. Recently (although in reality it has been in the public arena for at least a decade now) there has been the emergence of the term, tool, discipline, and mindset, that is ‘Design Thinking’. ‘Created’ and coined by Tim Brown of IDEO, [see my other blog, ‘Dangerous Times in Design’, if you want the defintion/ know what it is] it was a nice power move to make; affording designers a whole new playground and application of their skills, and executives a seemingly original angle at which to approach their business problems with. Since then it has slowly gathered favour and momentum, but its use and users have constantly been changing…

The early adopters of Design Thinking were/are the consultancies — both design and management. Design consultancies originating in digital, brand, product and even advertising all realised it was a capability band wagon worth jumping on. After all, they had the designers, who had that intrinsic creativity. With a bit of education, and experience in applying design thinking, they could then potentially tackle whole problems and develop holistic solutions. No longer would be they be limited to applying ‘lipstick on a pig’, or just making the app, product, or marketing material/ad campaign. No, this was real power to shape… and with that, a fee that reflected it. Saying this, the sell was always going to be difficult. Why would companies pay their ‘design’ agency to solve their business problems? After all, they had been doing it themselves, with tried and tested processes for years and been successful(?)… and if it wasn’t they themselves, then surely it was the management consultancies, their go-to bed fellows that would be the next port-of-call?

… enter the Management Consultancies. Management Consultancies are brimming with clever, very hard working people who crack complex problems and projects at break-neck speed. These consultancies are there to provide, and by that implication, sell, the latest ways of thinking that give their clients a competitive advantage. One of the latest of these capabilities is of course Design Thinking (and/or Service design — the remit to more holistically solve problems, looking beyond experience design (front of stage) and into backstage workings, organisations, business & behaviour). This new fangled ‘human centred’ approach makes obvious sense. Of course we should ‘put the customer first’, and ‘have the customer at the heart of everything we do’. This isn’t new, but somehow business had forgotten this over the last few decades (perhaps its memory is cyclical) — hence it makes for a refreshing change and something everyone is adopting.

And what everyone (or most) want, consultancies are happy to provide. There have been several avenues to achieve this from training staff in the tools and methods (of Design Thinking) so it becomes part of their professional armoury, to whole acquisitions of design companies. Examples include Accenture-Fjord, EY-Seren, Deloitte-Market Gravity, McKinsey-Lunar. Each have had varying success, with perhaps the obvious comment to say that the road has been rocky. After all, for grass root designers, working in management consultancies was never going to be easy, but that’s for another blog.

What is really at the fore here is that Management consultancies (whose client book and relationships are much wider and deeper than design consultancies) started to sell a strategic level of design to their clients. Not necessarily as outright projects or capabilities, but as a new tool that their consultants could leverage to do even better work. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, having management consultancies champion design thinking has been of great benefit to its cause, but has muddied the waters of what ‘Design’ is and who does it.

As discussed in my other blog post — ‘Dangerous Times in Design’ the move to Design encompassing design thinking, has, overall, been of a net positive effect. The key here is, (I believe) the design application being done by management consultants, companies, and that too by many designers within management consulting & companies, is Design Thinking, not necessarily Design.

When we’ve abstracted and codified the approach so that it is just another tool, or at best a method, where anyone, after a brief period can ‘accomplish’ it, then it becomes difficult to label that a profession.

Bright consultants in these places are picking up the core of Design Thinking and its tools quickly and applying it to the plethora of projects they fly around the world solving. But this doesn’t make them ‘Designers’, it just makes them consultants with Design Thinking as a skill to their bow.

Am I just being precious? Is it because I, and many others I know, spent years training to be designers, and now it appears some people can pick up design thinking over a few weeks or months, (and I’m not just referencing job experience, but places like General Assembly (GA) that offer short 3 month courses to become UX designers) that I feel hard done by?
Perhaps.

But I believe that Design is more… it is certainly more than ‘Design thinking’, that’s for sure.

Perhaps it’s really all about positioning. Let’s call things as they are more accurately.

Design Thinking is a mindset.

At its lowest common denominator it’s a bunch of tools that can be executed to illustrate a human centred point of view. This, even at this level, is a good thing that consultants can, and should adopt, blending it into their work. But this isn’t Design and doesn’t make them Designers.

Designers do of course exhibit Design Thinking, sometimes outright, like the management consultants do to solve problems more holistically, but many times they do this intrinsically — when they just go about designing stuff! This Design Thinking is more a part of Design. By itself it isn’t, but as a component of the greater process of creation; when combined with craft, creativity and a different level of empathy and understanding, then, it becomes Design.

It’s not all about the consultancies of course. Many businesses, especially larger organisations are empowering their staff with Design thinking workshops and Customer first/ centered initiatives. This again, is a valuable thing.

What people should remember is, that as they would never consider calling themselves fashion designers, interior designers or product designer, unless they had spent years mastering the craft, that same logic is true for those designers that bring years of true design experience and focus to tackling problems or opportunities in services and businesses. Due to it being less physical or aesthetic does not make it less true to design and easier to conquer and label.

I have seen designers use the components of Design Thinking and Service design in very different ways and to a very different effect as non-designers. The value is not just in knowing how to use a tool, but the population and application of that tool, and of course what you do with it!

Conclusion:

Design Thinking shouldn’t have the word design in it. It’s misleading.

The flavour of it that non-designers leverage is about a human-centered approach.

This is what it is about and should be called — a human-centered approach to problem-solving.

Designers (and others) doing real design, do design thinking, where a human-centered approach is intrinsic to the act of creation and craft.

Those of you that are ‘enlightened’ by Design thinking — you do not need to become service designers. Do what you do best, just add a human-centered approach to your skillset/the way you problem solve.

tl:dr
Design Thinking is only a component of Design and doing it does not make people designers.

I find the term misleading. A human-centred approach is what management consultancies, companies, and organizations really need. This can be provided expertly by designers but can be equally as effective through empowering their staff.

Design Thinking isn’t design, it’s Design Thinking was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many people in the world and business still see ‘Design’ as that thing which makes things look good, function well, and perhaps have an emotive quality. Recently (although in reality it has been in the public arena for at least a decade now) there has been the emergence of the term, tool, discipline, and mindset, that is ‘Design Thinking’. ‘Created’ and coined by Tim Brown of IDEO, [see my other blog, ‘Dangerous Times in Design’, if you want the defintion/ know what it is] it was a nice power move to make; affording designers a whole new playground and application of their skills, and executives a seemingly original angle at which to approach their business problems with. Since then it has slowly gathered favour and momentum, but its use and users have constantly been changing…

The early adopters of Design Thinking were/are the consultancies — both design and management. Design consultancies originating in digital, brand, product and even advertising all realised it was a capability band wagon worth jumping on. After all, they had the designers, who had that intrinsic creativity. With a bit of education, and experience in applying design thinking, they could then potentially tackle whole problems and develop holistic solutions. No longer would be they be limited to applying ‘lipstick on a pig’, or just making the app, product, or marketing material/ad campaign. No, this was real power to shape… and with that, a fee that reflected it. Saying this, the sell was always going to be difficult. Why would companies pay their ‘design’ agency to solve their business problems? After all, they had been doing it themselves, with tried and tested processes for years and been successful(?)… and if it wasn’t they themselves, then surely it was the management consultancies, their go-to bed fellows that would be the next port-of-call?

… enter the Management Consultancies. Management Consultancies are brimming with clever, very hard working people who crack complex problems and projects at break-neck speed. These consultancies are there to provide, and by that implication, sell, the latest ways of thinking that give their clients a competitive advantage. One of the latest of these capabilities is of course Design Thinking (and/or Service design — the remit to more holistically solve problems, looking beyond experience design (front of stage) and into backstage workings, organisations, business & behaviour). This new fangled ‘human centred’ approach makes obvious sense. Of course we should ‘put the customer first’, and ‘have the customer at the heart of everything we do’. This isn’t new, but somehow business had forgotten this over the last few decades (perhaps its memory is cyclical) — hence it makes for a refreshing change and something everyone is adopting.

And what everyone (or most) want, consultancies are happy to provide. There have been several avenues to achieve this from training staff in the tools and methods (of Design Thinking) so it becomes part of their professional armoury, to whole acquisitions of design companies. Examples include Accenture-Fjord, EY-Seren, Deloitte-Market Gravity, McKinsey-Lunar. Each have had varying success, with perhaps the obvious comment to say that the road has been rocky. After all, for grass root designers, working in management consultancies was never going to be easy, but that’s for another blog.

What is really at the fore here is that Management consultancies (whose client book and relationships are much wider and deeper than design consultancies) started to sell a strategic level of design to their clients. Not necessarily as outright projects or capabilities, but as a new tool that their consultants could leverage to do even better work. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, having management consultancies champion design thinking has been of great benefit to its cause, but has muddied the waters of what ‘Design’ is and who does it.

As discussed in my other blog post — ‘Dangerous Times in Design’ the move to Design encompassing design thinking, has, overall, been of a net positive effect. The key here is, (I believe) the design application being done by management consultants, companies, and that too by many designers within management consulting & companies, is Design Thinking, not necessarily Design.

When we’ve abstracted and codified the approach so that it is just another tool, or at best a method, where anyone, after a brief period can ‘accomplish’ it, then it becomes difficult to label that a profession.

Bright consultants in these places are picking up the core of Design Thinking and its tools quickly and applying it to the plethora of projects they fly around the world solving. But this doesn’t make them ‘Designers’, it just makes them consultants with Design Thinking as a skill to their bow.

Am I just being precious? Is it because I, and many others I know, spent years training to be designers, and now it appears some people can pick up design thinking over a few weeks or months, (and I’m not just referencing job experience, but places like General Assembly (GA) that offer short 3 month courses to become UX designers) that I feel hard done by?
Perhaps.

But I believe that Design is more… it is certainly more than ‘Design thinking’, that’s for sure.

Perhaps it’s really all about positioning. Let’s call things as they are more accurately.

Design Thinking is a mindset.

At its lowest common denominator it’s a bunch of tools that can be executed to illustrate a human centred point of view. This, even at this level, is a good thing that consultants can, and should adopt, blending it into their work. But this isn’t Design and doesn’t make them Designers.

Designers do of course exhibit Design Thinking, sometimes outright, like the management consultants do to solve problems more holistically, but many times they do this intrinsically — when they just go about designing stuff! This Design Thinking is more a part of Design. By itself it isn’t, but as a component of the greater process of creation; when combined with craft, creativity and a different level of empathy and understanding, then, it becomes Design.

It’s not all about the consultancies of course. Many businesses, especially larger organisations are empowering their staff with Design thinking workshops and Customer first/centred initiatives. This again, is a valuable thing.

What people should remember is, that as they would never consider calling themselves fashion designers, interior designers or product designer, unless they had spent years mastering the craft, that same logic is true for those designers that bring years of true design experience and focus to tackling problems or opportunities in services and businesses. Due to it being less physical or aesthetic does not make it less true to design and easier to conquer and label.

I have seen designers use the components of Design Thinking and Service design in very different ways and to a very different effect as non-designers. The value is not just in knowing how to use a tool, but the population and application of that tool, and of course what you do with it!

Conclusion:

Design Thinking shouldn’t have the word design in it. It’s misleading.

The flavour of it that non-designers leverage is about a human centred approach.

This is what it is about and should be called — a human centred approach to problem solving.

Designers (and others) doing real design, do design thinking, where a human centred approach is intrinsic to the act of creation and craft.

Those of you that are ‘enlightened’ by Design thinking — you do not need to become service designers. Do what you do best, just add a human centred approach to your skillset/the way you problem solve.

tl:dr
Design Thinking is only a component of Design and doing it does not make people designers.

I find the term mis-leading. A human centred approach is what management consultancies, companies and organisations really need. This can be provided expertly by designers, but can be equally as effective through empowering their staff.

Anish Joshi
I head up design and innovation; creating and running Innovation Labs around the world for Royal Dutch Shell, Global Commercial and Chemicals. I’ve been a designer both consulting and client side, having done a diverse range of projects, both craft and strategic. I have a bachelors and masters in design from Brunel University London, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School. I give talks and lectures at universities and conferences to a plethora of professions, all about how strategic design is changing business and the world.

Whenever people ask me what I do, and I say I’m a designer, I dread the difficult, complex narrative, I know I’m going to have to spool, to answer that inevitable, subsequent question, “What sort of design do you do?” This is commonly accompanied by (trying to helpful) suggestions of fashion, interior etc.? I’ve truncated my response these days to “strategic and digital stuff”, which of course does little justice to design’s latest exciting incarnation.

What I’m talking about, is that I manage and do more strategic work through design thinking*, human centred innovation, service design, UX and UI design. What probably muddies the waters further is that I have an MBA; which then meanders my explanation into “Basically I can design you anything from a venture to a visual”

[*If you’re not familiar with this topic, my brief soundbite would be ‘Design Thinking’ is when you abstract design to being a thinking (and doing!) methodology and mindset that looks to problem solve through empathy, creativity and ideation, delivering value to all people in an ecosystem and the business itself. It starts with understanding the needs (known and latent), pains and aspirations of people and then sets about addressing them through what is technically feasible as well as viable for the business or organisation. It is what designers think and do, but applied to scenarios, strategies, services and businesses rather than physical (or digital) products. — This encompasses much of Tim Brown’s (IDEO) official definition but I take a step by step approach when introducing it, as it good to join the dots from design as craft to design as thinking]

All this got me thinking… as Design expands into the realms of solving complex business problems, strategic scenarios, customer experience and services; What is ‘Design’ (with a capital D ) today, and who are ‘Designers’?

First I introspect.
Does the design I do right now align with why I became a designer in the first place? Do I fulfil my raison d’être? Does that passion for creativity surface in what I do day-to-day? Perhaps.
My trouble is, in my definition of design (dated as it might be?), its fabric also includes the craft of making and being original in that mindset i.e. I still expect design to have aesthetic and physical quality; colour, composition, balance, material, elegance, form, function, dynamism, emotion, cognition.
This is why I became a designer, but somewhere in ‘growing up’, I found that the ‘design thinking’ part of equation allowed me to fundamentally change and shape more in the world. This is what businesses are calling out for - it may of course turn out to be a fad, it's certainly a buzzword.

Is Design the right word ?

With the establishment and growth of Service design and Design thinking, design has opened itself up to new worlds. People from non-traditional design backgrounds — that is, those that have not had formal design training or qualifications, or that have a grounding in the ‘traditional’ craft facets of design, can become practitioners of this new field. Once design has been democratised to the level of logic, user-centricity and empathy only (and separated from the ability and skill to craft and shape aesthetically, functionally and emotionally), then the potential for almost anyone to enter the field is huge. While this is still of course a net positive for any organisation and design in general, it suggests that anyone can be a ‘designer’ just by the advocacy and utilisation of a simple mindset and a handful of tools.

I have had coffees with many people that say — I heard your talk on design / read about it on the net /was introduced to it at my business school and I want to be a designer!
Generally this is a good thing. I could never begrudge anyone from design but these days I am explicit; they may not need to be a designer, just incorporate design thinking into what they do. This aspiration stems from the trigger that these people have suddenly seen how a design point of view is refreshingly different to the way their business or professional world traditionally operates. Being more human excites them, and as that dimension is fundamental to living, coupled with that the design thinking tools (in their structure) are easy to pick up, the barriers to entry are low — the grass is looking a particularly striking Chartreuse green [#7FFF00–127,255,0] on the other side.

The key is that the design thinking mindset needs to become part of what everyone does (everyone should be a design thinker), but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to become, or is, a ‘Designer’.

A ‘designer’ (in my subjective book) is someone quite different.
I say this, but some people from psychology, computing, business and particular arts backgrounds make for very good designers… given the right timely experience. This isn’t black and white, the world rarely is. Many people can enter the field from different points and become designers, but only if they adopt it more holistically; Design is a lifestyle.

But the point is, this is not the failing. The failing is the contra.
The act of solving business and strategic problems in a human centred, empathetic, creative way, is not necessarily ‘Design’. It is, and can be done very well by trained professional designers of course (and hence here we are!), but it is not exclusive to that profession. It is a way of thinking, a mindset, a culture, a method, a process and a set of tools that are a powerful way to improve business and life.

How business centric does design really need to get then?

Identity crisis. Should designers then stick to doing (traditional) design? While we’re at the start of this strategic design curve, designers are best placed to bring about change. Design projects normally involve designers utilising their skills and acting as facilitators to get the most and best out of people who have that contextual knowledge … but at a certain point, the problem may be better tackled by educating those people with the knowledge, with the tools of design thinking. Here Design is the secondary, enabling component. There is a point at which traditional designers may not be the best placed to tackle these problems.

Am I being ignorant / stuck in the past / showing inertia ?
Is this the Design of the time?

With the emergence of the Bauhaus and the Eames’ pushing design into new frontiers in the 20th Century, there must have been skeptics, perhaps anchored in their arts & crafts traditions? In fact when I first heard about design thinking, I too was skeptical and cynical. Design was most certainly about the aesthetics, the craft, the form and function… surely? But I did make that jump to abstraction, drank the kool-aid and probably got caught up in the opportunities that the new design discipline gave me. I have no regrets, I think.

There is good reason to believe that Design Thinking, is now very much Design. Not that the traditional design professions have been replaced in any way…

What now?

On the one hand, Design has found itself in a critical and coveted position where it has genuine influence in business with a much greater power to fundamentally shape (It has always been a valuable component, but normally at the level of product design, or the creative within marketing and advertising)… on the other, this new direction no longer leverages its old foundations and opens the door to all, potentially allowing the profession to be reduced to a process. This is what I call McDesign, something I go into more detail about in my MBA thesis — ‘How will new directions in Design shape the future of business?’.

Why did I write this article — for therapy? Perhaps.
But I’m not looking for agreement to these points of view, but more to put the questions out there, of whether this new direction of design puts the profession at jeopardy? Should it always encompass the craft components? Should it necessarily be done by ‘Designers’ and who really are they?

Anish Joshi
I head up design and innovation; creating and running an Innovation Lab for Royal Dutch Shell, Global Commercial and Chemicals. I’ve been a designer in both consulting and client side, having done a diverse range of projects, both craft and strategic. I have a bachelors and masters in design from Brunel University London, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School. I give talks and lectures at universities and conferences to a plethora of professions, all about how strategic design is changing business and the world.