A designer’s role in the real world

The pandemic has forced many of us to ask ourselves difficult questions that were either forgotten or conveniently put on back burner. One central question that keeps coming up in my conversations with peers, and students of design is:

What is a designer’s evolving role in the society and how do I fulfill that role while paying attention to satisfying my client needs?

I look for every opportunity to discuss this question with my peers and clients. I particularly find the pandemic an opportune time to engage people in a dialogue on critical issues concerning designers’ responsibility to the society.

Last Monday I had dinner with Frank Brown, a senior design strategy director at Ford Motor company. I have admired Frank for his open mind, childlike curiosity and design thinking. Every time we meet we discuss the evolving practice of design. I find our conversations insightful and useful because he always has an interest in using the outcomes of the conversations to inform his efforts in building an innovation practice for his organization.

Being curious about social practices in Shanghai (Client: Ford Motor Company)

These conversations have led us to believe that design practice must deliver value in more ways than before. My spontaneous reaction to the central question mentioned earlier in this blog, “What is a designer’s evolving role in the society and how do I fulfill that role while paying attention to satisfying my client needs?” was an artistic illustration:

In this illustration, I picture a designer in the role of a bee on a mission to cross-pollinate ideas for creative outcomes. Every petal of the flower in this illustration is potent with possibilities. Our job as a community of bees is to continually seek awakening of the self and its alignment with the potential for inspiration that exists in the society.

What does this mean in practical terms? Every individual in an organization, tasked with design of new products, services, messages, must first be encouraged to a pursue personal journey of consciousness and given opportunities to form working relationships that are based on a shared interest in inspiring creativity and working towards a social cause.

Expanding Imagination of the client organization (Client: Target Corporation)

In this role designers are encouraged to mingle with real people in the real world, noticing and sensing emerging sings of changes triggered by cultural, technological, social, and psychological shifts. Through interactions with people in the real world we can become aware of the changing mindsets and priorities (e.g. as a consequence of the lockdown and remote working during the pandemic). When we wander we get to listen to the stories everyday people tell us about their life and dreams. We will compile these stories, connect the dots, and generate narratives of a desired future in social imagination. These narratives will serve as the guidelines for meaningful design.

Conversations with a young team of software developers in Indonesia (Client: Mozilla/ Firefox)

With our capacity for facilitating generative thinking, designers can serve as moderators and provocateurs of conversations between people (within and outside client organizations). We can guide the conversations about “How Might We…” change life for better.

Provoking People to imagine their future in Chiang Mai, Thailand (Client: Mozilla)

Designers have the capacity to influence how our client organization thinks, learns, behaves and makes decisions. We can gently prod and provoke beliefs that constrain them from recognizing the need for change. Such an approach will help them communicate better with each other across silos and internalize, synthesize and interpret insights. Designers can create stimuli for a social dialogue. Through such a dialogue we can help clients harness the wisdom and creative competencies available both within their organization and in the communities they want to serve. We can help establish a culture of collaboration between our client organization and their customers.

Giving people the tools to tell their stories in Moscow (Client: HP)

Using design tools for generating a dialogue in Stockholm (Client: HP)

I envision designers connecting every project idea to a big picture view of how that project outcome can help enrich people’s lives; How to find a socially relevant purpose in deployment of technologies; how to help organizations become more mindful of the consequences of their actions and above all to look outside of the four walls of ego, beliefs, legacy and culture and harness the energy from the free winds blowing in the real world.