It’s an exciting time to be a designer. We’ve never
been in a better position to have an effect on the quality of people’s
lives. Companies large and small are turning to design as a way to
create better products and improve consumer loyalty. This raises two questions for me: will newspapers jump on the innovation band wagon and reinvent
themselves? And will news designers step forward and lead the change or
move on?
The application of design concepts can be seen throughout corporate America and are being used to teach children “design thinking” as a way to solve problems in fundamental subjects such as math and science.
The April 2006 issue of Fast Company magazine features a profile on the Mayo Clinic’s SPARC Innovation Lab.
(Fast Company has a regular feature called “Design at It’s Best,” and
is committed to the power of great design in business.)
The idea
of the SPARC (see, plan, act, refine and communicate) lab is to
get healthcare providers thinking more like designers. The lab
“operates like a design shop that specializes in the “patient
experience.” “Doctors, nurses and other staffers do what
designers do: They interview, shadow, and observe customers (in this
case patients) to uncover their needs, brainstorm with abandon, and
engage in rapid prototyping.” Since SPARC lab began it has implemented
ideas that are now used throughout the Mayo system.
Deborah
Adler, a graduate student at the School of Visual Arts in New York,
designed a new packaging system for prescription medications called
Safe Rx for her thesis. A creative director for Target saw her idea for
the packaging, now known as ClearRx,
and it became a reality when it launched in stores in 2005. Target has
consistently been a leader in making functional, attractive design
available to the average person.
The important thing about
ClearRx is not the attractive packaging but that the packaging improves
safety by having clear, consistent dispensing instructions that helps
consumers avoid medication mix up or incorrect doses that could be life
threatening.
Organizations such as The Corporate Design Foundation and INDEX are
committed to inspiring and improving the quality of people’s lives
through design. They do this by not just looking at the end product but
by examining the whole system of a business. Including how the design
of workplaces fosters innovation and business success.
So, what
is a designer today? On top of mastering craft skills such as color
theory, typography and composition, a designer is a conceptual
problem solver, innovator, content developer, project manager, editor,
communicator, motivator, patient collaborator, sales person, writer,
photo editor, researcher, art director, planner, information analyst,
negotiator, technician, teacher, budgeter, programmer, presenter and
quality control manager. Today’s designer must also be cross-platform
savvy, culturally diverse, and well, the list goes on and on.
But
what really sticks with me is that this is an inspiring profession with
the potential to have a significant impact on people’s lives. Design in
the media has the awesome potential to reach a vast audience in ways
yet to be explored and there is much we can learn from companies that
have changed the way they look at business through the lens of design.
After all, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
What do you think? What would happen if the news media used the kind of “design thinking” that has been so successful in medicine and retail?
