What should design be like in the future?
The Design Manifesto of Courage & Innovation
The old Chinese folktale about the story of a young Chinese maiden named “Mulan” that left millions of people in awe. It is the love and devotion of family Mulan portrays from knowing that his father would never survive the rigours of war, despite knowing she would be regarded as a disgrace that dishonours her family, Mulan went for it nevertheless. The heart, courage, patience, perseverance and talent of Mulan, pushed her to achieve what was seemingly impossible to her. And that’s what inspired me to re-evaluate my perspectives in designing innovatively.
“Design thinking” is failing, it just doesn’t work like how it’s being expected to. It is the human-centred approach to innovation when designers utilise their toolkits to integrate the needs of the society, expand the possibilities of technology in design’s future. By processing these stages, anyone is said to be empowered to solve problems efficiently; however, I strongly believe that it isn’t the only ‘definitive’ formulation, nothing is right or wrong in nature, but can be evaluated as good or bad. This systemic paradigm helps designers in tackling all kinds of complex problems, but we might eventually end up circulating the limited set of creativity issues designers can reach by relying on the given design theories. Design process should be divergent, but convergence is unavoidable when making conclusions.
Design is not solely about the impulsive problem-solving skills that fulfil a particular need in a short time, creative innovation elements that explore new ways for value creation are always the ones being forgotten. As an interaction designer freshman full of fresh, wild, and free imaginations on how far apps and websites could go when I first joined the design industry. However, disappointment always overwhelms me as almost every design outcome of today looks the same, or with similar functions. I could hardly determine one that stands out from the crowds, performs exceptionally. It is understandable that as people strive to be their best selves; co-design in design thinking and transdisciplinary design suggest that design experts should work together on a piece of puzzle, unfortunately reality slaps. It has gone to promote democratisation in design, instead of encouraging the growth of innovation. In such a fast-paced and multi-tasking environment of today full of impatient business demands, assimilations of solo creatives with too many team members or stakeholders who are inexperienced or even clueless in design, will all result in deterioration of ones’ creative skills, innovation dies out. Designers must master the arts of active listening and feedback giving, as an integrated organism takes time.
How well are we welcoming the flow of innovations and creative juices, is there sufficient space given to cultivating them? Innovation is a rather subjective and disruptive topic, different exploitations of new ideas require distinctive metrics and value drivers to measure, tough to manage and find a balance between. We should abandon saying “it is good enough!”, but learn to develop a holistic understanding of a problem. Designers with a mindset of a beginner’s mind, embrace ambiguity are likely to be more innovative in comparison. Eliminating the impetuous habit of designers to get tasks done, let's take a seat, allows rearrangement of thoughts, immersed in a critical-thinking process. Creativity is a key essence of innovation. Organisations should engage in the work of grouping up real industry experts, improving their capabilities in design as innovations demand high standards of ability, talents and knowledge to tackle the nature of creativity. Such capabilities will enable successful starting points for creativity, and the motivation to continue because they are supported by experiences derived from observation and recognition of heterogeneous values in the bonds of human cultures and habits. Being sensitive to cultural expectations when facing ethical decisions will keep us yielding the greatest good and least harm, where the utilitarian approach teaches us, for a better design’s future indeed.
Seeds of impactful unique designs take time to harvest, water of iterations and fertilizer of creativity, these wouldn’t be possible if the soil of courage is absent from the start. Everyone designs their lives based on their way of understanding the world, thinking about systems changing on an ontological level, we will experience better. Design should genuinely inspire people with delightful surprises and unexpected life experiences, unfolding opportunities for positive growth. The future is now, unlock creative confidence, take risks that honour your vision, make unprecedented changes through design for good!
The video version of this manifesto is available on Youtube.
