Design: it’s not all about you.

Too often, design companies throw around terms like user-experience design, user-interaction design and human-centered design, proclaiming that the sole motivation, and center of their design target, is the end-user experience. It’s a noble proclamation, and most would be hard-pressed to disagree. But here’s a dirty little secret: in reality, and much to the chagrin of user-centered design proponents, it’s not all about the user.

Increasingly, a designer needs to understand and design not only the user experience, but also the brand and business model surrounding the product or service. While a recognizable brand offers the promise of comfort and familiarity to a user, those benefits will only be accepted if they feel right. When a brand ignores this dialog between users and brands, and morphs into something that feels discordant with users’ expectations or previous experiences, the fallout (which comes fast and furious in the networked economy) can be crippling. Tropicana found this out recently when they hired Arnell Group to redesign their orange juice packaging. As the New York Times reported:

“The about-face comes after consumers complained about the makeover in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls and clamored for a return of the original look. Some of those commenting described the new packaging as ‘ugly’ or ‘stupid,’ and resembling ‘a generic bargain brand’ or a ‘store brand.’ ‘Do any of these package-design people actually shop for orange juice?’ the writer of one email message asked rhetorically. ‘Because I do, and the new cartons stink.’”

Empathy for the user is obviously very important. But as feedback becomes more instant and more intense, and products increasingly become conversations between brand and user, we need to better understand the needs of the companies we represent as well. Just as users have needs, companies have needs too. As we work to understand the goals, aspirations and needs of the users we represent, we must do the same for organizations. After all, if the company doesn’t have the resources or desire to bring an idea to market, all of the pleasurable interactions we design can’t change the fact that the end-user will never see it.

A product will only become successful if it makes it to market. Over time its success will be judged on its ability to generate more income than it costs to maintain. In other words, a wildly successful product does no good if its long-term costs bankrupt the company launching it. So there’s obviously a need for upfront strategic thinking at the conceptual level. Understanding business metrics and goals frees us to pursue financially relevant solutions, ones that are sustainable, innovative and responsive to user, brand and business needs.

Historically, designers haven’t been overly concerned with understanding the balance between the pillars of user, brand and business. A sole focus on users does little to create synergies between organizations and individuals, or to create products with meaning within the larger context of market. It just reinforces the sense that design organizations often don’t get business metrics. Increasingly however, designers are getting involved in strategy in ways that would have been unthinkable to an earlier generation.

Nathan Shedroff, who runs the MBA in Design Strategy program at California College of the Arts, describes Design Strategy thusly:
“This is what is meant by the term Design Strategy: the use of design processes, perspectives, and tools to create truly meaningful, sustainable, and successful innovation across a variety of design disciplines, including industrial, interaction, visual, experience, and fashion design… Whether design strategy is the new thing needing to be injected into business culture or whether business values, understanding, and language is the thing needing to be injected into design culture almost isn’t an issue. Ideally, both need to happen in order for organizations of all types (including non-profits and government agencies) to truly innovate and build more appropriate, successful, and sustainable solutions. This also requires those with a design background and those without to work together to bridge these understandings and create better cultures for innovation.”

When I think about the operating principle driving an ideal design consultancy, this is what I see: Cross-disciplinary teams working collaboratively with clients to understand business, user and brand needs. Then designing empathetic systems, services and products that leverage all aspects of the relationship between these key pillars. The best designers will be strategists, those that understand each element in the ecosystem and build beautiful, sustainable bridges between them.

As frog's Executive Creative Director, Nick de la Mare leads frog’s cross-disciplinary teams in the pursuit of strategic design solutions across product, service and experience. His work focuses on the convergence of digital and physical media to create branded experiences for Nike, Chase, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, among others. His projects have been recognized by the IDSA, AIGA and others, and published widely.