{"id":2488,"date":"2014-12-04T11:43:11","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T16:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thinking.is\/?p=2488"},"modified":"2024-07-11T10:59:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T14:59:08","slug":"but-were-all-designers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.daed.com\/?p=2488","title":{"rendered":"But We\u2019re All Designers!"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Sooner or later, everyone who works in design hears something along the lines of\u00a0but we\u2019re all<\/strong> designers<\/em> – usually from a Project Manager who didn’t agree with the designer and wanted to go in a different direction.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Everyone Designs<\/span><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Of course, it\u2019s true. We all design. Most of us have designed the layout of the furniture in our homes to work for our needs, and we’ve hopefully figured out where we want to hang our pictures and artwork. Maybe we’ve modified customizable software to better match how we want to use it, and we’ve arranged the apps on our smartphones in a way that allows us to quickly access our favorites. We’ve arranged the contents of our desktop (both physical and virtual) and decided where to put our coffee cup so that it\u2019s close enough to reach, but not so close that we\u2019re going to accidentally knock it over.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Not Everyone Designs Well<\/span><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Everyone designs. But not everyone designs well<\/em>. Not everyone has the skill to put the pieces together in a way that\u2019s not only useful and usable but elegant and beautiful as well. Not everyone has the ability to step out of their own perspective to see the world how someone else \u2013 the user \u2013 will see the world and to design for that worldview. Not everyone has the knowledge of how the human body and mind work, and how its quirks influence the way the users interact with products and designs.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Many years ago, I was working in consumer electronics when blue LEDs became widely available – they were the cool, new thing and everyone wanted to use them. At the time I was working on a DVD player with a project manager who was particularly enamored of them, and he was delighted when our industrial designers added a long, thin blue LED that sat just above the DVD tray door.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The project manager, let\u2019s call him Don, really loved this LED. It was supposed to be lit only when the DVD tray was opening or closing or when it was left open. But that wasn’t enough for Don \u2013 he wanted it lit whenever a DVD was playing<\/em>. It sounds like a pretty good idea, doesn’t it? Unless you know about one of those quirks I mentioned earlier.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This quirk is the\u00a0Purkinje\u00a0Shift,\u00a0<\/em>and it happens in your eye when you move from bright to dim lighting conditions.\u00a0In psychological terms, the\u00a0peak luminance sensitivity of the human eye shifts from long wavelengths to short wavelengths when dark adapted.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In other words, if you have a red light and a blue light of equal brightness, in bright conditions the red light will appear brighter. This is because our eyes are most sensitive to light from the warm end of the spectrum in bright conditions. But in low light, we become more sensitive to the cool end of the spectrum as our vision shifts from cones to rods. The end result is that our perception of the brightness of those two lights flips \u2013 in dark conditions the blue light appears brighter than the red. In the image to the right notice how the blue in the background becomes more prominent as the red fades with darkness.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I explained this phenomenon – this quirk – to Don. Then I asked him to imagine that he had just picked up the hottest new movie release and to guide me through what he does to get set up to watch it. Fortunately, Don was a smart guy, so as soon as he got to \u201cI turn off all the lights\u201d he made the connection that I was (not so subtly) guiding him to.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

My point is that being human doesn’t make you an expert on human beings (yes, I’ve heard that one too) and it doesn’t make you a designer – <\/em>no more than being human makes you a\u00a0doctor<\/em>. Yes, you can probably correctly diagnose a common cold, a stomach bug, a headache, or something equally innocuous. But when the cold won\u2019t go away, or the stomach bug comes back, or the headaches get worse, what do you do? You go to the experts.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I’ve been in design for over 20 years and I’ve seen the results when expert designers aren’t involved in the design of a product. Whatever the device is, even if it looks good (and often it doesn’t), it nearly always has usability issues, it frustrates the user, and it gets tossed aside when a better design – one designed by designers – comes along.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n

Featured image by<\/span> geralt\u00a0<\/a>|<\/span> Pixabay License<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Punkije Shift:\u00a0<\/span>Klbrain<\/a>,\u00a0CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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