My Design Strategy
I am currently taking a class called Design Strategy. For my first assignment, I created my own, unique definition of strategic design and made a model which shows the relationship between design and strategy. My definition and model are based on a multidisciplinary review of strategic design and my professional experiences so far.
This assignment (and blog post) is intended to serve as a foundation for my understanding of design strategy. It will change and refine as I progress and work with the concept. By the end of the course, I hope to update my definition and model accordingly.
Strategic Design: Definition & Model
Strategic design is the process of aiming a design with intention. To do this, designers empathize with a user’s and client’s situation (the context) while following a design philosophy.
Design strategy is the resulting target which aims to provide a clear, coherent direction for design improvements.
My model of strategic design.
What Strategic Design Means To Me
While doing this assignment, I was determined to come up with a comprehensive definition of strategic design. Why? Well for one, there is no definitive understanding of what strategic design actually means. Secondly, I want to understand strategic design in a way that’s meaningful and helpful to myself and others.
What’s a good strategy?
My definition and model for strategic design didn’t just come out of the blue.
After some initial research on strategy, I got frustrated. All the scholarly articles I found were too focused on a specific context or particular case. I even turned to some of my marketing strategies from my undergraduate classes. While those were great for business goals like brand positioning or market growth, I struggled to understand how strategy can help designers.
Eventually, I came across an article (Source 1) by Strategy Director Tim Clancy in which he discusses Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (Source 2). Rumelt advised the US Department of Defense on strategy, and in his book he identified three elements which he calls the ‘Kernel of Good Strategy’: (1) diagnose the problem being solved, (2) set a guiding policy that will address that problem, and (3) propose a set of coherent actions which will deliver that policy.
FINALLY, I had something that made sense to me. While Richard’s definition is suited for policy, it helped me realize what actually comprises a strategy in general. I re-framed his three elements to develop a new definition for strategic design: a process which (1) empathizes with a user’s and client’s situation, (2) follows a clear design philosophy, and (3) aims to provide coherent directions for design improvements. Let’s break this down, starting from the top.
Part 1: Empathize with a user’s and client’s situation.
The context is the design space which frames or encompasses a strategy. Hence, it surrounds the outer ring of my model.
It’s important for designers to balance empathy with users and clients. On the right side, designer’s build empathy for their user’s situation through a variety of methods and tools. This comes naturally to designers - it’s what our field is all about. However, equally important is to build empathy for client decision makers (the left side). Clients, or stakeholders, have needs as well: profiting, marketing, technical and development constraints, operations, branding, legal requirements, cultural and ethical considerations, etc. A UX designer can employ their methods and tools to empathize with clients. I learned this lesson while reading an article (Source 3) about the design agency Fuzzy Math. Co-founder Mark Baldino highlights why conducting research about the client is a core part of their company’s strategy. As he says,
“Observing clients’ internal interactions helps us to understand their pain-points, their goals, and what needs to change to make their lives better. Plus, throughout the process of getting to know the client, we can learn to use the client’s language rather than academic language or UX jargon.”
The client can’t be ignored in the context of a design problem. If the client isn’t understood, then a strategy will fail to consider what’s important or necessary from their point of view.
The context is like a lens through which a complex, interconnected system is understood. A designer shouldn’t be expected to know everything about their user’s or client’s perspective, but they need to focus on both to have a clear lens to look through.
Part 2: Follow a clear design philosophy.
There is no one right way to be strategic. Strategy is personal! Everyone has different ways of thinking and handling ambiguity. For a designer, to be a strategist is to have a design philosophy.
According to Indiana University’s HCI/d Professor Erik Stolterman, a designer’s philosophy is shaped by four sets of competencies. In my model, these sets make up four quadrants on the inner ring. The quadrants represent a crosshair or reticle, which are linings on an eyepiece used for sight. In a similar sense, these sets guide a designer’s decision making.
The Design Way, Page 231
The left side shows an individual’s thinking and doing:
Mind Set: what a designer thinks.
Skill Set: what a designer can do.
The right side shows a collective’s, or team’s, thinking and doing:
Knowledge Set: what can be taught.
Tool Set: what is available to use.
As Nelson and Stolterman describe in their book The Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World (Source 4),
“The ongoing responsibility in learning to be a designer, as well as in the practice of designing, is the challenge of maintaining the sets over time — discarding and renewing content as needed.”
A designer will bring their own mind set and skill set to the table while also having the knowledge set and tool set from their design team. Each quadrant should be treated as important. By recognizing how we think about and do design, we can gain the confidence needed to shape the final part of the model: strategy.
Part 3: Provide coherent directions for design improvements.
That’s it. That’s a design strategy: a coherent direction for design improvements. Let’s take a step back for a moment. My model has two qualities which are very intentional:
First, the colors represent how a designer forms strategy. The context is not black and white. The context is a grey color because it represents what we don’t know. Designers navigate this murky context by following a clear design philosophy. A blue color emerges toward the center of the target as a strategy is refined from this philosophy. The result is a solid, blue circle at the center which symbolizes how a strategy adds unique meaning to a grey, opaque context.
Second, the target analogy represents why designers need strategy. A UX designer might argue that strategy goes against a design process which thrives on iteration and constant change. Following a strategy in design can have consequences if it is rigid and misdirected.
I thought about this limitation in my model. This is why I use the analogy of a moving target, a concept which is inspired by a quote from Professor Erik Stolterman during his Design Philosophy course,
“To be at the right place at the right time, we have to keep moving.”
The world is a moving target which is always changing. A strategy which hits today could be a miss tomorrow. It’s important to keep moving and be flexible.
Life is unpredictable, which makes it impossible to have a perfect strategy. As Mike Tyson once famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Following a certain design strategy with stubborn conviction is planning for failure. So, I plan for the unexpected. My model is a moving target. As the context changes, the strategy will need to adjust as well.
I’ll admit that having aim doesn’t guarantee a target will be hit, but it is better than shooting from the hip and relying on luck. This is why design needs good strategy; it needs aim. Our aim becomes sharper as we grow our design philosophy.
At the end of the day, design without strategy might as well be dribbble…
References
Source 1. Clancy, Tim. “A Good Strategy Will Include These Three Elements.” Hall & Partners, 17 Oct. 2019, www.hallandpartners.com/three-elements-of-good-strategy.
Source 2. Rumelt, Richard P. Good Strategy Bad Strategy: the Difference and Why It Matters. Profile Books, 2017.
Source 3. Baldino, Mark. “Applying UX Design Tactically to Achieve Strategic Objectives.” UXmatters, 5 Dec. 2016, www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2016/12/applying-ux-design-tactically-to-achieve-strategic-objectives.php.
Source 4. Nelson, Harold G., and Erik Stolterman. The Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World. The MIT Press, 2014.
