On Design Realms, Modes & Actions.

WHAT IS DESIGN FOR?

That is one of the most pressing questions unraveling in production culture over the past 50 years or so. With the advent of neuroscience and the rise of systemic design cultures, design—at its best—is seen more or less as an extension of thought or a pure thought process. In other words, design is thinking. But it’s not thinking for its own sake, as philosophers often do. Design is thinking to enjoy, understand, craft, distill, and direct value. And because value is shared, design—thinking is often collaborative, made out loud, or done in deep solitude.

Think about good food here: nutritious, flavorful, and enjoyable. Now imagine good food with good friends or family. Now food is probably better. Sometimes controversial, but never dull. Here, I propose how design can be enjoyed, digested, propelled, and empowered. Nothing new or radical—just a small contribution. But if design is thinking, perhaps we could spare a thought.

DESIGN REALMS

Design, as a broad umbrella, spans many levels of specificity. For example, service designers often look at the end-to-end complete service in a sequence of events. For them, the broader, the better. If you are in the cat business everything from the eccentric cat behavior to the compostable material of cat litter can contribute to value and profit. On the other hand, UI designers focus primarily on the visual aspects and performance of digital product components. There is nothing bigger or smaller in these fields—it’s all a matter of scale or design altitudes.

DESIGN ACTIONS

Design actions are what designers do, often accompanied by an artifact that reflects and helps to produce an outcome. I like to talk about actions because sometimes designs happen in a meeting (an act) or a napkin (a material) rather than solely in your head. Often these actions are made tangible in artifacts. Artifacts are material deliverables that represent the current state or possible future state of things.

DESIGN MODES

Here comes the kicker: Design Modes. This is where design often gets confused, empowered, or vulnerable. I like to describe design modes as something you do with design, much like switching different states of a light bulb. Let's dig deeper.

Design for Optimization
Focuses on improving and refining existing actual systems, products, or processes for efficiency, performance, and better user experience. This includes understanding feedback loops from people engaging on different touchpoints of current products or services and addressing it in a strategic and sustained manner.

Design for Innovation
Aims to create new, groundbreaking ideas or solutions that push the boundaries and challenge conventional thinking. This can include thinking about new business models, new products, new tech, or a new solution. Here much value of design is made.

Design for Transformation
Goes beyond incremental changes, driving deep, systemic shifts within organizations, industries, policies, or society, resulting in a more holistic transformation. Here design works along with others to make impactful transformation consciously.

If Design Modes were different music genres; Design for Optimization is like classical music: structured, precise, and always refining. Design for Innovation is like jazz-funk, improvisational, and experimental, always evolving. Design for Transformation is like ambient music meets electric bluegrass (will not expand here).

Wrapping Up

Design as a practice isn’t just an output or even a process but a way of thinking that drives value, jumpstart innovation, and transforms organizations and systems. Whether refining little details of a button or reshaping entire industries, design makes a valuable impact.