We live in the natural world, but we have filled it with myriad man-made things, creating new environments into which we introduce myriad processes governed, or not, by rules. It seldom occurs to us that all this stuff - everything man-made - is subject to design. We fail to recognise the design element of what we do, or what we use, because we take it for granted, or simply follow a template. In the latter case, what we are doing is copying the previous design, hence we skip the design step. This happens often in much of what we create and use - we fail to recognise the opportunity for design because it's already been done for us, or we just level it out by following convention.
Or, we just don't think about design at all. We create something to fulfill a purpose, which might be just to tick a task off on a long list of tasks in our lives. So, if we need to log patients into a hospital department, we list out all the steps - fill a form, log the form, notify someone etc, and then cobble them together without thinking consciously about design.
Design clearly matters. And what better example than the iPhone, especially with its brilliant 3.0 software upgrade. At last, we have some of the features that we felt were missing, including MMS. Now, this is something I thought that I wasn't going to miss, yet within days of getting my upgrade, I've used it several times already - and received MMS from friends with iPhones. Why? We didn't send each other MMS before (iPhone). It's because it's so damn easy and such a compelling user experience. Why? Because of the beautiful interface design.
And for heaven's sake, weren't some of us banging this message (forgive the pun) many years ago? How mobile phones could be so much better if someone actually took the time to design them properly. And this is my point, coming back to those who claim to understand design, which I think I do - although I'm not necessarily a good designer (except several patents in chip design I guess might count).
I've met countless companies who will tell me that they don't need help with design. "We've got designers," they say, or "We've got our own usability experts," blah, blah, blah - and then they release a crappy product that has some nice design features perhaps, but overall isn't up to the job. It's usually because they too are simply following templates, albeit based on "modern" approaches.
What's missing from the equation is something about quality and insights. And I can't believe how often this issue crops up in life. It's a bit like saying "Oh yeah - we know how to cook," as if merely mixing ingredients and putting them through various cooking processes is what makes a good cook. Clearly, when I do all that stuff, it isn't the same as Gordon Ramsey or Raymond Blanc doing it, is it?
"Oh, we have UI designers," they say, and, as Motorola did for years, give us the worse user experience possible, bordering on offensive.
Design, like innovation and all its components (of which design is one of them) needs to be taught in schools from the earliest age possible, yet I think (in the UK) we would struggle to figure out how to teach it, assuming the education departments think its useful, which I very much doubt.
When I recently met some kids and reminded them that alphabets are human inventions, they were surprised. And when I asked how they might better design alphabets, there were clearly confused by the proposition. "What the hell do you mean?" was the common response.
If we now live in the era of right-brain thinking, we better get real about teaching it.