[TMA] Design's challenges make sense with this perspective

UX/Design is typically thought of as an activity—a process or methodology for a particular kind of work. But to understand why UX/Design struggles to realize its potential within organizations, I find it most clarifying to consider design as a function of the firm, akin to sales, marketing, IT, HR, finance, etc.

A function is a specific area within a company dedicated to a particular type of work, grouping together related activities and responsibilities to achieve business objectives. Simplistically, it can be defined by the answer to the questions: What do those people do? What value do they bring the organization?

For other functions, these answers are straightforward. Take Marketing: through the activities of market research, brand management, product marketing, and communications, Marketing acquires qualified leads, builds brand awareness, and reduces customer acquisition costs. And this is true of Marketing in any organization.

UX/Design, however, is much more variable. Activities may or may not include user research, strategic vision, prototyping, content strategy, accessibility. About the only thing that maintains across all companies is its responsibility for visual user interface. Which is probably why, in so many companies, this is what UX/Design is often reduced to—it's the one thing that people in the other functions can reliably expect. That reduction also applies to the value realized, with a narrow focus on usability.

For UX/Design to realize it's potential, it must frame it's functional value in a way that can be appreciated, and taking up, by the rest of the organization.

Strategy: Be Careful What You Ask For

Design-as-a-function has been top of mind this past week, thanks to a couple of mind-expanding discussions I had. The first was with Robert Fabricant, whose discussion of Relational, Position, and Expertise Power I wrote about a couple weeks ago.

As we spoke, Robert pointed out how, organizationally, a function is very much defined by its 'interface'—how do other functions connect with it, what is its specific output that other functions can 'take up.' This is why UX/Design is often defined by 'screens'—that's the tangible artifact that other groups work with.

He also shared thoughts on the folly of UX/Design's desire to be seen as 'strategic,' pointing out to me that few organizations have Strategy functions, and in those that do, those functions are typically understaffed, under-appreciated, and not able to realize much impact. (Sound familiar?)

All Design is Service Design

Nearly 10 years ago, I wrote that 👆 as a section heading in Org Design for Design Orgs, and it's still an animating principle for me. When you study people, and how they go about their lives and work, you realize the distinctions that companies typically make (marketing, product, service, support) all fall away, which is why I continue to advocate for Design to be a broad, holistic function with an end-to-end purview. I'm not ignorant of the operational challenges this brings (the broad differences in interfacing with marketers, product managers, engineers, customer service, etc.), but I believe the benefit of a coherent and complete customer experience outweighs those challenges.

This came to mind as I spoke with John Gleason, the second mind-expanding discussion from last week. John organized the panel that spurred the latest round of "Is Design Dead?" commentary, and draws from his experience in consumer packaged goods (CPG), initially with Procter and Gamble during their design innovation phase, and subsequently as a consultant across the industry.

And while in our discussion we identified some core distinctions between UX/Design and design for CPG (the latter is still dominated by design agencies, with very small in-house teams), the two share foundational value systems (rooted in people-centricity and creativity) and are subject to similar forces (re-orgs that kill executive-level design efforts; corporate financialization that has separated shareholder value from customer value.

And we both believe in the potential of the biggest-D "Design" spanning all touchpoints customers have with an organization, and are hopeful that this shared crisis moment for Design leads to lowering the barriers between our practices and a joining up of forces. (And, yes, I know this only complicates the 'functional' definition of Design. At least we know the challenges we're facing!)

An eminently pragmatic discussion of design, quality, and performance

I absolutely adored Ricardo Vazquez's presentation at the Design Leadership Summit last January. This might be the best 26 minutes (fewer if you playback at faster speeds) a design leader can spend today.