#28. Design is not important until it becomes essential
This newsletter belongs to “The Sunday Tales Summer Edition”.
These summer letters are a bit lighter, a bit slower, just like the season.
But they’re also an opportunity: a chance to treat these months as an open campus, to learn something new, reflect on my process, and find better ways to do the work I care about.
According to Donald Norman, in his book Design for a Better World, most artificial things are designed by humans. From city landscapes to the way we eat spaghetti, to the spaghetti itself—it is all a human creation, hence it has been designed.
Long pasta design. From the article “An Illustrated Guide to Pasta Shapes and Names”.
Design is everywhere.
Still, in many companies I have worked with, it is a practice that is ignored, dismissed easily, replaced without thinking, or sometimes even nonexistent.
It is also the subject where everyone has an opinion, a better suggestion, or a comment.
I have seen my work receive feedback that was not actionable, like: “I don’t like it, it is too blunt.”
As if it were a painting (I don’t want to offend any painter here, of course, as painting also has meaning and a reason to exist!). But the point is not the feedback itself. It is the quality of it. I’m unsure how to handle “too blunt”. It is not actionable, and it is subjective.
So, if I had to explain design to people I know, where would I start?
I would start exactly from that shelf and define a few points that might help you appreciate our work better, defend your role in future discussions, or, if you are hiring a designer, set the right expectations from the start.
Design is not subjective like art. It is objective.
Anything created by professional designers is usually grounded in user research and the careful observation of how people act and interact.
It’s never just a designer’s subjective decision to structure a website in a certain way or to shape a feature on a whim.
Our work follows practices and theories rooted in the study of people (human behaviour). Many of these ideas may have originated in the art world (no idea is virgin, as I proved in my talk, The Future of the Web is Printed), but over time they’ve been adapted to the design field—first in print, and now in the digital world.
Design is not subjective like art. It is objective.
Design is not decorative like art. It is intentional.
Products look better when a designer designs them. In most cases, design follows function, and so things are beautiful not because they are simply pleasing to the eye, but because, through design, we can improve people’s lives, and even their attitude towards tasks that might otherwise feel daunting.
I recall an experiment by Lonsdale that tested how typography and layout affect performance. Two groups were given the same task, but one group received poorly formatted documents while the other got well-designed, legible ones.
Unsurprisingly, the group with the better typography performed faster and more accurately. Typography, the most invisible element of design (invisible = because when it works, it simply helps you read), doesn’t just make a page look nice; it literally shapes behaviour.
I even gave a talk a few years ago inspired by this experiment. You can read the article here.
Design is not decorative like art. It is intentional.
Design is not trendy like fashion. It is strategic.
We vote for the best website design on the AWWWARDS platform. Clients ask for “modern” designs that make their company look up-to-date. We copied the soon-to-be-trend (and soon-to-be-forgotten, I know my friend Oliver will agree with me ) Liquid Glass look. We invent labels like ‘Web 2.0’ or ‘Web 3.0’ to define design trends.
But design is not a trend. It is not like fashion. Sure, some designs may look old and obsolete, but changing a good and functional product just because it seems outdated is a waste.
Changes in design must be dictated by a strategy that serves both the brand and the user. Strategic changes can bring measurable impact, and those impacts are not about “how many visitors land on my page” but “can the user follow the flow from A to Z without losing focus?”.
That’s the significant mindset shift. If you are hiring a designer to make things look shiny and modern, then you are undervaluing what a good designer can do for you.
Design is not trendy like fashion. It is strategic.
“Design is invisible when it works, and the first to be blamed when it doesn’t. That’s why design is essential.”
I have worked in companies where design decisions were made behind closed doors and handed to me by Product Owners like a shopping list. I’m sorry, but design doesn’t work that way.
Designers don’t just execute ideas without context or reasoning. Sure, you can find designers who won’t question and will just deliver. Good luck with that!
Good designers ask questions, bring reasoning, and shape better experiences. And yes, sometimes we already know better (I never said designers aren’t a bit arrogant!)—if only there were more trust in our role.
Yet when something goes wrong, design is the first to be blamed. Most of the time, though, the fault lies in vague instructions or poor collaboration, not in the design itself.
When a form breaks or a table wobbles, that’s not design—it’s execution. But because design is the part everyone sees, it’s the easiest scapegoat.
Remember: designers don’t work in isolation. What you see is only the tip of the process. Behind it, there are choices, trade-offs, and collaboration—or sometimes, the lack of it.
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