Skip to content


There are a few ongoing debates in the world of digital design. Things like Should designers code?”, “What’s the value of design?”, “UX versus UI,” and, perhaps most fundamentally, “Is everyone a designer?” To get a taste for the flavor of that last one, you can step into this Twitter thread from a little while back (TLDR: It didn’t go super well for anyone):

To be clear at the outset, I don’t care if everyone is a designer. However, I’ve been considering this debate for a while and I think there is something interesting here that’s worth further inspection: Why is design a lightning rod for this kind of debate? This doesn’t happen with other disciplines (at least not to the extent it does with design). Few people are walking around asserting that everyone is an engineer, or a marketer, or an accountant, or a product manager. I think the reason sits deep within our societal value system.

Design, as a term, is amorphous. Technically you can design anything from an argument to an economic system and everything in between, and you can do it with any process you see fit. We apply the idea of design to so many things that, professionally, it’s basically a meaningless term without the addition of some modifier: experience design, industrial design, interior design, architectural design, graphic design, fashion design, systems design, and so on. Each is its own discipline with its own practices, terms, processes, and outputs. However, even with its myriad applications and definitions, the term “design” does carry a set of foundational, cultural associations: agency and creativity. The combination of these associations makes it ripe for debates of ownership.

Agency

To possess agency means to have the ability to affect outcomes. Without agency we’re just carried by the currents, waiting to see where we end up. Agency is control, and deep down we all want to feel like we have control. Over time our cultural conversation has romanticized design, unlike any other discipline, as the epicenter of agency, a crossroads where creativity and planning translate into action.

At its core, design is the act of applying structure to a set of materials or elements in order to achieve a specific outcome. This is a fundamental human need. It’s not in our nature to leave things unstructured. Even the concept of “unstructured play” simply means providing space for a child to design (structure) their own play experience — the unstructured part of it is just us (adults) telling ourselves to let go of our own desire to design and let the kids have a turn. We hand agency to the child so they can practice wielding it.

There are few, if any, activities that carry the same deep tie to the concept of agency that design does. This is partially why no one cares to assert things like we’re all marketers or we’re all engineers. They don’t carry the same sense of agency. Sure, engineers have the ability to make something tangible, but someone had to design that thing first. You can “design” the code that goes into what you are building, but you do not have the agency to determine what is being built (unless you are also designing it).

If we really break it down, nearly every job in existence is either a job where you are designing, or a job where you are completing a set of tasks in service to something that was designed, or a job where your tasks are made possible by some aspect of design, or some mix of the three. Either way, the act of “designing” is what dictates the outcomes.

Creativity

The other key aspect of our cultural definition of design is creativity. Being creative is a deep value of modern society. We lionize the creatives, in the arts as well as in business. And creativity has become synonymous with innovation. There is a reason that for most people, Steve Wozniak is a bit player in the story of Steve Jobs.

The idea of what it means for an individual to be creative is something that has shifted over time. In her TED Talk, Elizabeth Gilbert discusses the changing association of creative “genius.” The historical concept, from ancient Greece and Rome, was that a person could have a genius, meaning that they were a conduit for some external creative force. The creative output was not their own; they were merely a vessel selected to make a creative work tangible. Today, we talk about people being a genius, meaning they are no longer a conduit for a creative force, but instead they are the creative force and the output of their creativity is theirs.

This seemingly minor semantic shift is actually seismic in that it makes creativity something that can be possessed and, as such, coveted. We now aspire to creativity in the same way we aspire to wealth. We teach it and nurture it (to varying degrees) in schools. And in professional settings, having the ability to be “creative” in your daily work is often viewed as a light against the darkness of mundane drudgery. As we see it today, everyone possesses some level of creativity, and fulfillment is found in expressing it. When we can’t get that satisfaction from our jobs we find hobbies and other activities to fulfill our creative needs.

So, our cultural concept of design makes tangible two highly desirable aspects of human existence: agency and creativity. Combine this with the amorphous nature of the term “design” and suddenly “designer” becomes a box that anyone can step into and many people desire to step into. This sets up an ongoing battle over the ownership of design. We just can’t help ourselves.

Take again, as proxy, our approach to the arts. While we lionize musicians, actors, artists, and other creators, we simultaneously feel compelled to take ownership of their work, critiquing it, questioning their creative decisions, and making demands based on our own desires. The constant list of demands and grievances from Star Wars fans is a perfect example. Or the fans who get upset if a band doesn’t play their favorite hit song at a show. Even deeper, we feel a universal right to remix things, cover things, and steal things.

Few people want to own the nuts-and-bolts process of designing, but everyone wants to have their say on the final output.

But just like other things we covet, what we desire is ownership over the output, not the process of creating it. For example, we’re willing to illegally download music, movies, books, games, software, fonts, and images en masse, dismissing the work it took to create it and sidestepping the requirement to compensate the creator.

A similar phenomenon occurs in the world of design. Few people want to own the nuts-and-bolts process of designing, but everyone wants to have their say on the final output. And because design represents the manifestation of agency and creativity there is an expectation that all of that feedback will be heard and incorporated. Pushing back on someone’s design feedback is not just questioning their opinion, it’s a direct assault on their sense of agency.

As a result, final designs are often a Frankenstein of feedback and opinions from everyone involved in the design process. In contrast, it’s rare to see an engineer get feedback on the way code should be written from a person who doesn’t have “engineer” in their title. It’s also even more rare to see an engineer feel compelled to actually take that sort of feedback and incorporate it.

Another place this kind of behavior crops up is in the medical world. Lots of people love to give out health advice or question the decisions of doctors. However, few people would say “everyone is a physician.”

And I think this represents a critical point. There are two reasons that people do not assert that they are a physician unless they are actually a physician:

  1. We have made a cultural decision that practicing medicine is too risky to allow just anyone to do it. You can go to jail for practicing medicine without a license.
  2. No one actually wants to be responsible for the potential life and death consequences of the medical advice they give.

This highlights a third aspect of our cultural definition of design: Design is frivolous. Despite the connection between design and agency, many still view “designing” as trite and superficial.

Humans are sensory creatures. We absorb much of the world around us through visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory inputs. Because of this, when we think of the agency inherent in design most of us think about it in terms of the aesthetic value of the output. Basically, we continually conflate design with art. If you don’t believe me, watch any episode of Abstract on Netflix. This is also why design programs are still housed in art schools.

So when most people critique designs, their focus is on aesthetics—colors, fonts, shape—and their reactions are based on the feelings and emotions those aesthetic values elicit. While aesthetics have an important role to play, they are only a piece of the overall puzzle. It is much harder for people to substantively critique the functional merits of a design or understand the potential impacts a design decision can have. That is partially why so many of our design decisions end up excluding certain groups of users or creating other unexpected negative consequences: We don’t critique our decisions through that lens.

Everyone is a designer because there is no perceived ramification for practicing design.

Because of this narrow, aesthetic-based view, the outcomes of the design process feel relatively inconsequential to many people, especially in comparison to something like the outcomes of a medical diagnosis. And if there are no consequences, why shouldn’t we all participate? Everyone is a designer because there is no perceived ramification for practicing design.

Of course, in reality, there are major consequences for the design decisions we make. Consequences that are more significant, on a population level, than many medical decisions a doctor makes.

What I’ve come to realize is that the idea that everyone is a designer is not really about some territorial fight for ownership; it’s actually a symptom of our broken culture of technology. Innovation (creativity) is our cultural gold standard. We push for it at all costs and we can’t be bothered by the repercussions. Design is the tool that gives form to that relentless drive. In a world of blitzscaling and “move fast and break things” it serves us to believe that our decisions have no consequences. If we truly acknowledged that our choices have real repercussions on people’s lives, then we would have to dismantle our entire approach to product development.

Today, “everyone is a designer” is used to maintain the status quo by perpetuating the illusion that we can operate with impunity, in a consequence-free fantasy land. It’s a statement that our decisions have no weight, so anyone can make them.

I said at the beginning that I don’t care if everyone is a designer, and I mean that. If we keep thinking of this debate as some territorial pissing match then we continue to abdicate our real responsibility, which is to be accountable for the things we create.

It really doesn’t matter who is designing. The only thing that matters is that we change our cultural conversation around the consequences of design. If we get real about the weight and impact that design decisions have on our world, and we all still want to take on the risk and responsibility that comes with that agency, then more power to all of us.

Bad things happen as we stop solving people problems and start solving business problems

Ask a designer who the most important stakeholder in their design process is and they will dutifully answer “the user.” It’s been drilled into us that our job is to represent the people who will use our products. We “empathize” with them and put their needs in the center of our decision-making process.

On paper, this sounds great, and many organizations wear the badge of human-centered design with pride. But when you take a step back and start to consider all the negative consequences that are created by these very same organizations, it becomes clear that something is amiss.

How could a process predicated on empathizing with people result in things like rampant data manipulation and exploitation, addictive features that hijack human psychology, systemic abuse, disenfranchisement, and predatory dark patterns? The answer is that it can’t. This can only mean one thing: We aren’t actually practicing human-centered design. And, unfortunately, the more established your company, the truer this statement is. As companies scale up, as they all strive to do, their priorities and incentives become less and less aligned with the people using their products.

The dehumanization of design

Taking an idea from concept to business means moving through a series of gates. In the Silicon Valley model the gates look something like this:

  1. Develop an initial product concept and launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
  2. Iterate on MVP to reach product/market fit.
  3. Scale up.
  4. Cash out.

Driven by venture capital money, the goal is to cross these gates as quickly as possible. They’ve even coined a phrase for it: “blitzscaling.”

The problem is that as a company moves through each gate, the organization and its underlying incentives fall farther out of alignment with the needs of the people using the product and align more and more with the needs of the business. While an org may preach human-centered design, this growing imbalance of incentives and priorities runs counter to the tenets of that practice and makes it increasingly difficult to maintain them. Here is my generalized representation of how that looks:

Image by Author

Let’s walk through each phase to get a sense for what this means. We are going to use the example of a ride-sharing app to illustrate the point.

1. Initial concept development/MVP

If human-centered design exists in any phase, this is it. We discover a real problem that people are having in the real world and we set out to solve it.

Maybe you notice that it’s not easy to get a ride home from college if you don’t have a car, and you want to solve that problem. At this stage your design challenge might be something like:

How can we make it easier for people to get a ride without needing their own car?

This is a people problem. Addressing this problem means understanding the larger human context behind it and then developing a solution that delivers real-world value. That is human-centered design.

In this case, you decide to create an app that allows people to share rides. You design, test, and prototype with potential customers, build your MVP, and launch it into the world.

This step of the process is as customer-focused as you will likely ever be. Your vision is clear and competing priorities are incredibly limited. All you want is for your solution to solve a real human problem. Ironically, this is also the moment where human-centered design begins to die.

2. Reach product/market fit

As soon as your MVP is live, the incentives underlying the design process change dramatically. Provided your solution isn’t completely off base (in which case you basically move back to phase one) the next step for your app is to improve the experience and iterate on the feature set.

This shifts your focus away from the external human context of the problem and narrows it to the internal product context. You aren’t solving real-world problems anymore; you are solving product-based problems that you created with the way you designed your solution. In our ride-sharing app example, a problem in this phase might be something like:

How do we make it easier for riders to rate drivers?

This is a product problem. It didn’t exist until you created it. Yes, it is affecting people and addressing it means you need to understand the behavior of those people, but only within the context of your product. This may feel like a subtle difference from the MVP phase, but it is a critical distinction. This is a key first step in dehumanizing the design process. First, it represents a narrowing of our view of who the people we are designing for are. We begin to form a bubble where “understanding the user” means understanding their interaction with the product, not understanding the context of their life. This is the step where “humans” become “users,” and the way they interact with the business becomes how they are defined.

Second, this is where we start to introduce numbers, in the form of engagement metrics, as a proxy for people, creating a new layer of separation between us and them. For example, in the case of the driver rating problem above, our key indicator of success will not be based on individualized feedback, but rather on whether or not the overall percentage of riders who rate their driver goes up. This kind of measurement is unavoidable, but we rarely acknowledge its dehumanizing effect. Users become an amorphous blob masked behind our business metrics.

While this kind of product problem is still largely focused on user issues, the business-centric context shift alters our definition of what’s important and primes us to focus more on business needs.

3. Scale up

Once a product has traction, the question becomes “How do we grow?” This introduces a new focus: maximizing key growth metrics. In the case of our ride-sharing app a problem in this phase might be:

How do we increase the number of rides people take?

This is a business problem. No human is walking around saying, “Man, I wish I had to use my ride-sharing app more often!” This type of problem is the antithesis of a human-centered problem.

In order to increase rides, you either need to squeeze more value out of existing customers, convince new people to start taking rides, or both. While some of this is about driving awareness, much of it centers on convincing people that they have a problem, or in the worst case, actively creating new problems. This is no longer about uncovering an unmet need and developing a solution.

It is this step where things can really start to turn and those negative externalities emerge. This is the realm of addictive product loops, invasive notifications, email drip campaigns, dark pattern tricks, data manipulation, and whatever else we characterize as growth hacking these days. It’s countdown timers in checkout flows, 0% down offers, Prime Day, and planned obsolescence. A lot of the advertising world makes its hay here as well.

When teams are incentivized solely around moving metrics all manner of unsavory things become fair game.

Solving these problems means you are designing to extract value, not to deliver it. To “understand the user” in this context means understanding how to change or manipulate their behavior in order to move a metric. When teams are incentivized solely around moving metrics, all manner of unsavory things become fair game. This is where your ride-sharing app might develop something like Greyball.

4. Cash out

This is the last gate. You now have a successful product operating at scale. Your new problem — and the core focus of the organization — becomes:

How do we maximize our market value?

This is a market problem. The goal is to position the company in the best light possible for IPO or acquisition, or some other liquidity event. This is the final step in dehumanizing the design process. You are now designing for the investor.

The most likely outcome for the people using your product is not some new solution to a real problem they have, but a doubling down on the extractive tactics you employed while scaling. Make no mistake: Growth hacking is not some short-term stop-gap; it’s like a drug. Once you get hooked there is no turning back. You’ve created a beast that must be fed, and good luck getting off that treadmill. So for many, this becomes the new normal, and negative externalities become the cost of doing business.

It doesn’t stop once you cash out, either. If you go IPO, for example, you are legally obligated to prioritize increasing investor value for as long as you are in the public market. If you get acquired, it’s likely to be by some other publicly-traded company under the same requirements. The idea that you could swing back to focusing on the needs of your customer at this point is foolishly idealistic.

The principles of human-centered design evolved over decades, but it really took hold in the 1990s, when it was popularized by IDEO and other design consultancies. Human-centered design is the perfect tool for a consultancy like IDEO, which takes on the task of uncovering new problems and proposing new solutions. It’s also why this mode of design works so well in the first phase of product development. But consultancies rarely build and scale things; in fact, they almost never leave the first gate. Building and scaling is up to the client. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way the relationship works.

But what this means is that human-centered design is not something you can just drop into any organization and expect it to improve outcomes for customers. For a lot of companies with existing products, the concept doesn’t fundamentally align with the incentives of the org. It’s also why it becomes increasingly difficult for teams who employed human-centered design principles early in the life of a company to effectively maintain the practice long-term. The growing misalignment of incentives creates major headwinds to selling through and leveraging the resulting insights. There are too many competing priorities, and the context through which the company views “the user” fundamentally changes. This is where things break down and bad things can happen.

Negative externalities emerge as “human-centered” technology platforms grow because the reality is that their focus shifts deeper and deeper into business-centric thinking. The bubble that begins to form when we move from creating an MVP to focusing on “product problems” only gets bigger over time, and teams become increasingly disconnected from the real world. It’s a slippery slope where the problems of the business overtake the problems of the humans the business serves, and it warps our perspective.

Delivering real human value isn’t a benchmark for business success. Instead, success is defined by speed, scale, and growth.

This is an incentives issue deeply rooted in our culture of technology. Delivering real human value isn’t a benchmark for business success. Instead, success is defined by speed, scale, and growth. When an entire business is incentivized to scale at all costs, it takes a lot of effort and intention to separate yourself from that context. It’s unnervingly easy to be swept along not realizing how far things have drifted from your original goals. When we do talk to customers, it’s shaded by this context. Our research goals are driven by the needs of the business. We ask the questions that will get us the answers to complete our current task.

The first step to solving all this is awareness and being willing to have honest conversations with ourselves. If we hide our heads in the sand and insist that everything we do is human-centered, we are less likely to question our choices and the choices of those around us. But awareness is just the first step.

If we ever want to truly align the kind of design we say we do with the kind of design we actually do, we need to be willing to question our cultural definition of success. Reaching for scale and endless growth drives us to do unnatural things as we lose sight of the human value we were trying to deliver. As the negative impacts of our technology choices continue to grow, it’s time to consider that speed, scale, and growth are flimsy proxies for success.

SCENE: AFTER HOURS IN A DARK CO-WORKING SPACE

FADE IN:

INT. DARK CO-WORKING SPACE — NIGHT

A solitary figure sits in front of a laptop, the only light source in the dimly lit room. Our protagonist, an innovative entrepreneur, is determined and focused.

Their face illuminated by the screen, the entrepreneur navigates the treacherous waters of the business world. Each keystroke is a testament to their resilience in facing countless challenges.

Tight deadlines, limited funding, investor expectations, and ever-changing regulations are just a few obstacles our main character must overcome. The market’s volatility adds to the chaos.

But the true test lies ahead as our protagonist faces their most formidable adversary yet: a behemoth competitor with seemingly bottomless pockets.

As tension mounts and stakes rise, our entrepreneur must dig deep, summoning every ounce of creativity and cunning to outsmart their well-funded rival.

FADE OUT

Launching a startup is akin to diving headfirst into an action-packed thriller, where each twist and turn brings new challenges, adrenaline-pumping moments, and the constant pursuit of triumph against all odds. In the dynamic world of startups, crafting a compelling narrative isn’t just about telling a story; it’s about creating an experience that resonates with your audience.

Like the art of filmmaking, entrepreneurship demands a compelling narrative and a deep connection with its audience. The magic of cinema captivates us with diverse stories and experiences; startups must also craft narratives that resonate with their target market. While studio blockbusters rely on massive marketing budgets, independent films thrive on the strength of their storytelling and buzz.

Like an indie film, most startups lack the funding to build and promote a product at a “blockbuster” level. So, they need to be scrappy and creative in leveraging the resources they have at their disposal. In both realms, success hinges on telling a story that engages, inspires, and connects with the audience. Without generous investors or a long runway, startups can still reach the next growth stage with the right strategy.

As entrepreneurs, the challenge lies in crafting a strategy that ensures product-market fit and fosters a meaningful connection with customers — just like a major movie producer bringing their vision to life on the silver screen.

SCENE: Navigating the hurdles of the competitive tech landscape

Startups face an uphill battle, navigating the relentless demands of limited resources, tight time constraints, and the imperative for rapid innovation, underscoring the unique challenges they endure amidst the broader business landscape. Building an experienced team within budget constraints while ensuring efficient product development poses significant hurdles.

Overlooking UX design in the early stages of product development can lead to disastrous outcomes, including negative user feedback, low adoption rates, and difficulty attracting investors. The startup failure rate is staggering, highlighting the critical need for strategic UX integration.

Navigating critical growth stages, startups require seasoned expertise to innovate and develop new products effectively. While entry-level staff may offer fresh insights, their limited hands-on experience necessitates significant guidance and strategic direction, demanding valuable time and energy from founders and ultimately hindering the development of meaningful strategies.

SCENE: Design intentionally to gain a competitive advantage and drive growth

Startups can leverage UX design to gain a competitive edge, attract and retain customers, build brand loyalty, and increase market share. By prioritizing intuitive and user-centric design principles, startups can mitigate risks, accelerate learning curves, and position themselves for success.

These principles include:

  1. An iterative design process that focuses on testing and learning.
  2. Feature prioritization that drives toward focused, high-value delivery for customers.
  3. Rapid prototyping to get continual feedback from potential customers.
  4. A technology approach that prioritizes efficiency and scalability.

Executing against these principles takes intentionality. Startups can start from the ground up by assembling an internal team, which means finding individuals who can design, prototype, code, conduct research, provide strategic insights, and more. Another approach is finding an experienced product design partner who can help companies confidently navigate the complexities of product innovation.

At Design Like You Mean It (DLYMI), we operate like an on-demand film crew, gathering collaborative teams experienced in their respective disciplines to work on projects. With a proven track record and insights from different industries and organizations, we are a special ops team offering extensive UX/UI expertise and years of collective knowledge to propel your company toward its next growth phase.

At DLYMI, we understand startups’ unique challenges and offer collaborative, human-centered design solutions tailored to your needs. We aim to empower startups to create thoughtful digital experiences that drive growth and innovation.

Startups and entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of innovation, job creation, and economic growth. By embracing UX design as a strategic imperative, startups can unlock their full potential, turning their stories into blockbuster successes that resonate with audiences worldwide. It’s time to spotlight the transformative power of UX design in the startup ecosystem.

SCENE: AFTER HOURS IN A DARK CO-WORKING SPACE

FADE IN:

INT. DARK CO-WORKING SPACE — NIGHT

Our protagonist sits hunched over, eyes fixed on the glowing screen. Fatigue is evident as our main character blinks hard, finally tearing their gaze away from the monitor.

After hours of intense research and meticulous review, the brave entrepreneur has an epiphany. The potential cost and efficiency benefits of hiring an “on-demand film crew” will consolidate many skills without the burden of filling each role individually.

Determinedly, the protagonist identifies the perfect partner to bring their vision to life, setting the stage for the venture to become a blockbuster success.

In a moment of triumph, our main character peaks the story’s climax, gaining a crucial competitive edge against the behemoth competitor with bottomless pockets.

In relief, our protagonist closes the laptop, knowing that experienced designers will help accelerate the learning curve.

FADE OUT

ABOUT

Design Like You Mean It (DLYMI) is a Denver based product and UX design studio offering 30+ years of expertise. Cofounders Jesse Weaver and Michael Dusing lead a world-class team of product managers, designers, researchers, and developers. With human-centered design and expert collaboration, DLYMI builds products by shaping experiences that resonate with target audiences and drive meaningful outcomes.