Design Arrogance
Designers are arrogant, that's a given, a designer has to be to succeed in the industry. The IDSA has always seemed to be a breeding (cess)pool for arrogant designers who have become so full of themselves that they have lost all concept of their job to improve the bottom line of business. An article in the most recent edition of the IDSA's Innovation Magazine proclaims "well designed products sell themselves."
This is an extremely ignorant statement. I cannot believe the IDSA would let such a sophomoric statement soil the pages of their publication. Designers need to understand that they are a piece of the puzzle not the puzzle itself. Good design will help sell a product but there is so much more to the story of a business.
The Doblin Group, a consulting company specializing in innovation, puts design in it's place very well.
Their research shows that a majority of innovation efforts are spent on the product level as shown in the chart above.
Now if you look above, you'll see that product design efforts have an extremely low return on value. So contrary to designer belief, product design provides the least return to a business. A good staff of financial advisors appears to make a company more successful.
The Design Management Institute agrees. In Andrew Hargadon's article in the winter 2005 DMI Review, he discusses how the total company venture builds a successful product. The article rightly states that "no amount of design can save a bad business model - not even if it's for a better mousetrap." THIS IS HUGE! THIS FLIES IN THE FACE OF EVERYTHING I'VE EVER READ ON INDUSTRIAL DESIGN WEBSITES LIKE CORE 77, HEARD AT IDSA CONFERENCES, AND EVEN A LOT OF THE THINGS I WAS TAUGHT IN MY DESIGN UNDERGRAD.
In an interview with Jonathan Ive creator of the Ipod(which I regretfully cannot find the link to anymore), Ives briefly mentions something important. He says that they treat each product within the company differently and that Apple's design success would never be able to happen without this total business flexibility.
So what does all this mean? Designers, get off your high horse and learn that your job isn't the most important in the company, join the team, and go thank Selma in accounts-receivable for keeping the companies cash turnover rate in good standing. And to the IDSA, please open your eyes; you have become little more than pulpit for designers looking to brag about themselves, you have gone astray from being a professional organization.
This is an extremely ignorant statement. I cannot believe the IDSA would let such a sophomoric statement soil the pages of their publication. Designers need to understand that they are a piece of the puzzle not the puzzle itself. Good design will help sell a product but there is so much more to the story of a business.
The Doblin Group, a consulting company specializing in innovation, puts design in it's place very well.
Their research shows that a majority of innovation efforts are spent on the product level as shown in the chart above.
Now if you look above, you'll see that product design efforts have an extremely low return on value. So contrary to designer belief, product design provides the least return to a business. A good staff of financial advisors appears to make a company more successful.
The Design Management Institute agrees. In Andrew Hargadon's article in the winter 2005 DMI Review, he discusses how the total company venture builds a successful product. The article rightly states that "no amount of design can save a bad business model - not even if it's for a better mousetrap." THIS IS HUGE! THIS FLIES IN THE FACE OF EVERYTHING I'VE EVER READ ON INDUSTRIAL DESIGN WEBSITES LIKE CORE 77, HEARD AT IDSA CONFERENCES, AND EVEN A LOT OF THE THINGS I WAS TAUGHT IN MY DESIGN UNDERGRAD.
In an interview with Jonathan Ive creator of the Ipod(which I regretfully cannot find the link to anymore), Ives briefly mentions something important. He says that they treat each product within the company differently and that Apple's design success would never be able to happen without this total business flexibility.
So what does all this mean? Designers, get off your high horse and learn that your job isn't the most important in the company, join the team, and go thank Selma in accounts-receivable for keeping the companies cash turnover rate in good standing. And to the IDSA, please open your eyes; you have become little more than pulpit for designers looking to brag about themselves, you have gone astray from being a professional organization.
posted by Michael Nelson at 1:01 AM
3 Comments:
Spot on, thanks for that! I wish more designers would pull their head out of their hindquaters.
I can't see any reason why you would call Doblin a Danish company. That's an honour for my country ofcourse, but Doblin remains an american firm doing worldwide research that a lot of us benefit from.
oops I appologize, I misread something, thanks for the correction.
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