The future of design
A s intriguing as it sounds the future of design as we know is not likely to be the way we see it. Design has come a long way,the way it's processed and seen, from just a pencil and paper being a small practice inside huge companies to design-driven companies with a design first approach and design thinking in each step.
Design has changed the way of approaching to any problem and in the future, it is going to change even more radically. I have few thoughts on how the design field is going to change and the question is are we ready to adept to this design future?
More than just Design
Earlier, we would see graphic design, industrial design, or interaction design as design fields and there were a finite number of crafts out in the world. Now we’re starting to see that design is being used everywhere. The definition of design as a whole will dilute with time. Design will be just more than graphics and interfaces. One such example is organizational design, thinking about anything from the design of culture within an organization to how those organizations are designed themselves in terms of the structure,working, spaces and everything else.
The definition of design as a whole will dilute with time. Design will be just more than graphics and interfaces.
If we are solving the challenges of today, through journey maps, empathy maps and MVPs, we are likely not focused on distant futures. The future of design is about going beyond designing for today’s problems. Future includes tools and methodologies coming from strategic foresight and future thinking, such as scenario planning, trend mapping, system thinking tools, etc which not only improves user experience with his current flow but guides the user into a better user experience flow using the design itself. Design in the future wont make the user feel confortable by making what ever he does simpler. It would take the user into a different and more comfortable path which he doesnt know.
Designers to become Corporates
We need to brainstorme and use constructive criticism, find out the best and worst ideas. This process means that we go behind the best idea once we have it, no matter if it comes from the oldest designer at the company or from the newest one. Most companies in the current corporate world don’t think that way. They are hierarchical, which prevents innovative change and progress coming from younger ones. As design becomes an integral part of corporations and big businesses, we need to integrate this standardizing element of design thinking into the way we work in order to continue to progress .
We need to prepare for the changing nature of the industry in order to create a stronger design for the future. We tend to be humble people, more interested in making an impact with our work rather than incorporate politics or making money. The fact that we are increasingly working in the corporate world means that we will have to learn new skill sets, namely communication skills. We tend to lose our voice in this corporate environment, so we need to be better at speaking our minds and presenting our points of view. Unable to present our designs is as good as not designing. We have to balance our humbleness and isolation with the necessity of showcasing our work with more confidence and vocally.
Robots and Designers
As AI-driven parametric design enables designers to quickly and easily create millions of variations of a design, most of our productivity will dramatically increase. Suddenly, we will be able to explore massive numbers of alternative directions in a fraction of the time we need today. As long as AI stays more logical and less creative, designers would need not worry about their jobs being taken over by AI.
Apart from threatening the design jobs, Machines needs designers in the field of AI and ML such as, AI offers opportunities for designing the interactions between the them, AI powered application and the interaction between AI and humans. The entire field of AI is expanding exponentially and designing for robots would be a routine in the future and are we ready for it? We have not crossed the threshold where enough value from machine learning is available to the general design community, but when it gets real it is going to change the view of design for everyone.
We have not crossed the threshold where enough value from machine learning is available to the general design community. Not yet.
Conclusion
The available technology, Expansion of design community and design fileds, breakthrough innovations around machine intelligence are changing at a furious pace, but the capabilities available to designers and the design culture has not been able to keep pace. If we are not willing to accept the change in the process and experiment on each project, it would bring the entire aspect as designers to a halt. We need designers who can push the limits of design and to keep a constant focus on design innovation and create designs which takes us to that future of ours.
