Design Responsibly
Designers are just seeming to come to grips with the reality of how much control they have. Many of us go to school with the intention of changing the world, but in the day-to-day we may forget that our actions have real world implications for the people they touch.
People expect design to influence their life and seek out better-designed alternatives. With this desire and consumption of design, it is more important than ever to understand the relationships that are created between designer and experiencer.
There is always collaboration
As independent a designer as you think you are, it is always a collaboration.
Let us go extreme:
You, as a designer, live in the woods and whittle for your own entertainment. It sounds fairly independent. After all, you whittle something into existence and it exists only in your world. Right?
Of course not. In this situation there are two (at the most basic): the you as the whittler and the you as the owner of the whittled item. As you design, you are balancing your ability with your perceived need or desire. Sure, you may be skilled to chop something in half, but you do not desire to have two pieces of wood. Therefore, you probably do not do it.
Most of our design experiences do not require deep introspection to understand the relationships — instead, they are very apparent. If you design websites, you expect someone to use your website. If you design jewelry, you expect someone to purchase your jewelry. Your create work that others utilize.
What do you do with your power?
By recognizing your potential, you can make conscious decisions the impact how you design. Consider the value that you are driving forward:
Will a person’s life improve by purchasing your item?
Can you help create social good by driving email sign-ups?
How will your act of increasing engagement improve the life of a person on your site?
Understand your potential
As a designer, understand your potential for impact. Even if your designs only touch 10 people, those 10 lives will change because of it. If your designs touch 10,000,000 people, it is very likely that a large community will dramatically change if due to your decisions.
Create change with intent. Design responsibly.
