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I have so many thoughts—and so do lots of other people!—about @kschwabable's article for @FastCompany, "John Maeda: 'In reality, design is not that important'": fastcompany.com/90320120/john-….
The article is a summary and commentary on @johnmaeda's "Design in Tech Report": designintech.report. The phrase that has seemed to polarize its audience is in the title: "Design is not that important."
As a designer—one that has spent years trying to be a good designer (whether or not I've succeeded—this hurts my feelings! Who are you to tell me my many-year pursuit isn't important?!
But! Just because my feelings are hurt doesn't mean that the phrase is incorrect.
I'm open-minded. What does @johnmaeda mean, "Design is not that important?" In his 2017 report (designintech.report/wp-content/upl…), John describes 3 types of design: classical, design thinking, and computational. Which one of these is the version that isn't important? One? All?
In his critique, "Dear John Maeda, You’re Wrong." (blog.prototypr.io/dear-john-maed…), @iThink_iDesign wisely begins by defining "design" as those who "understand the end-to-end experience."
I THINK @johnmaeda agrees that that kind of design is important. I THINK John is saying that "classical design" (his words) isn't that important, or at least not important enough to LEAD. @monteiro examines the bias in that:
The second bit that seems to be incendiary is this one: "The role of design is to not aspire to be a leading actor — it’s goal should always be to become a great supporting actor." Again… my feelings!
"Designers should focus on being good teammates rather than leaders." The implication here is that designers shouldn't be leading but that other roles—developers? product managers? business analysts?—should.
In her article "Stop dwelling on being design-led: Focus on the user." (abstract.com/blog/from-desi…), @heatherjacket reminds us to keep our eyes on the prize: what people can do with the things we make. That's more important than who leads.
In the Designer + Developer collaboration workshop that @brad_frost and I teach (danmall.me/articles/desig…), we stress equality and balance through process. Sometimes the designer leads, and sometimes the developer leads.
For those working in a design-led culture, we teach designers to admit that—as the Agile manifesto professes—working software is better than comprehensive documentation.
Your dozens of comps aren't as important as you think if they're not reflected in real software that people can use, so value development and developers more and work with them more closely.
For those working in development-led cultures, we teach them to value both "classical design" and "design thinking" (in John's words), and we show how to integrate them in a way that doesn't compromise the cadence of shipping.
@mikeindustries nails it: "*Everyone* is a supporting actor."
As designers get more "seats at the table," a side-effect is that tech may be giving up their seats to make that happen. The Design in Tech Report is just that: a report of what has been happening. The "report" part is great; it's the "advice" part that's problematic.
The problem is that the advice isn't far-reaching enough. Yes, designers should seek to be more supporting cast members. But so should developers. And PMs. And everyone. Then we'll be equal. THEN, we can start politely taking turns. That's what design in tech should look like.
