Don’t be a punk

Written By Matthew Holloway

Interface Design. Interaction Design. UX Design. Product Design*. Regardless of what you call it, the design of how people interact with computers, software, digital devices, and services is not new. It was not invented in ~2005 by a consultant (which for some reason seems to be the popular timeline). In the last couple years there is trend for people in the profession to say compared to engineering or business that UX design is the “new kid on the block”, and its still learning how to add value. Horse shit.

While the field itself is not new, it is true that it is rapidly growing. These days seems everyone wants to be a designer, as a result there are a lot of people more than happy to take their money and sell them bootcamps, workshops, and a shelf full of how-to books. The unfortunate truth is what you actually need to know to be a (good) designer doesn’t fit in a bootcamp, let alone a book. The profession has a long and rich history and today design is present in every aspect of our lives.

In some ways these last few years with everyone wanting to be a designer reminds me of the 49’er Gold Rush—drop everything, get a pick and shovel, find sifting pan, stock up on some pork and beans, and head up into them thar hills; never mind you don’t know anything about geology or mineralogy, or for that matter even what raw gold actually looks like. Today the pick and pan have been replaced with a bootcamp and a book, but in both cases merely having the tools doesn’t give you the knowledge or understanding to use them effectively.

As a side note, its ironic both the California Gold Rush and today’s design “gold rush” both seem to be centered in San Francisco… mmm… And both seem to have attracted about 300,000 people—at least by popular account. Of course most of the original “forty-niners” lost their life savings in their pursuit, hopefully today’s forty-niner designers will fare better by comparison.

In any case, if you happen to find yourself talking to one of these forty-niner designers and they try to tell you that design is the new kid on the block, or that UX design, is an emerging field, with no clear metrics, still in the proving stages. Or worse: they were at the forefront of defining the field ten years ago, they’re a punk and you should just walk away. Seriously, find a puppy or just enjoy the sunshine, but just walk away.

If you can’t walk away, here are some fun tidbits you can share with them to see how much of a punk they are…

While primarily driven by the industrial revolution, modern design as we understand it has been a profession for well over one hundred years. It has evolved from mechanical machines with manual controls to digital products, on-line experiences, as well as augmented and virtual reality. Throughout its history modern design has played key roles in creating services, experiences, and even business strategies. Design has always embraced the latest inventions, collaborating with engineering and business to solve human problems and to address people’s needs.

To help put the modern design into context:

  • 1851 Joesph Paxton designed and built Crystal Palace for London’s “Great Exhibition”

  • 1907 Peter Behrens designs the entire AEG corporate identity (logotype, product design, publicity, etc.), retroactively he is called the first Industrial Designer.

  • 1919 Bauhaus founded in Weimar

  • 1919 Joseph Claude Sinel coined the term “Industrial Design”

  • 1920 Vkhutemas founded in Moscow

  • 1926 Walter Dorwin Teague creates the first design firm

  • 1929 Henry Dreyfuss opens his design firm

  • 1934 Carnegie Mellon establishes the first industrial design degree in the US

  • 1935 MoMA establishes their Industrial Design department

  • 1938 Henry Dreyfuss designed the streamlines 20th Century Limited train

  • 1939 Norman Bel Geddes creates Futurama for GM’s pavilion in the 1939 World’s Fair

  • 1943 Alphonse Chapanis pioneered human factors

  • 1949 Chapanis published “Applied Experimental Psychology: Human Factors in Engineering Design”, the first ergonomics textbook.

  • 1949 Raymond Loewy is featured on the cover of Time Magazine

  • 1954 Paul Fitts publishes his research which became known as Fitts’ Law

  • 1954 Henry Dreyfuss published “Designing for People”

  • 1966 Thomas J. Watson sends his “good design is good business” memo to IBM’s senior managers and executives

As for UX design, interaction design, user interface design, etc. while it wasn’t called “user experience” design until the 1990’s, the field of human-computer interaction—and the science behind it, has been around for over 60 years. Research from behavioral sciences, cognitive psychology, computer science, human factors, linguistics, all contributed to laying the foundation along side industrial and graphic design but when digital products achieved commercial viability human-computer interaction quickly became a profession. Design provided the means of transforming the research into reality.

Unfortunately over time the underlying knowledge that was used to define the field has been reductively repackaged summarized into bulleted lists, best practices, frameworks and process models. While frequently created to explain to non-designers that design is more than aesthetics to be applied at the end of development, many new comers to the profession only know these cursory descriptions and superficial explanations and have never been exposed to the extensive knowledge base and history, or the underlying science, that make up UX design.

Here are few of the high points in the history of designing the how people interact with digital products and services.

Its been nearly 25 years since the introduction of JavaScript, which gave the world the ability to create the original web apps which led to emergence of e-commerce, mobile, Web 2.0, social networks and Web 3.0. And after the iPhone was introduced in 2007, things got really crazy. But through it all, design—specifically UX Design, has played a critical role. While originally it may have been more focused on creating new interaction models and establishing interface paradigms, UX design has evolved to become a core player in establishing new start-ups, shaping new business models, and governing product strategies. Today design is leading the efforts for inclusion, social responsibility, and diversity in many corporations and NGOs.

While there are hundreds of people joining the community everyday, its important to not to sell design short based on the limitations of a bootcamp or book. Collectively we need to hold each other to account and ensure we are not allowing the ignorance of few—regardless of how outspoken, to undermine the creditability of us all, nor can we allow them to dismiss everything that design has contributed simply due to their ignorance.

*Product Design is a term historically applied to Industrial Designers, in recent years it has been cooped by interaction and user experience designers who are tasked with designing digital products.

Matthew Holloway
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