It's interesting how the word "design" gets interpreted and applied in so many ways that there doesn't seem to be a standard definition for it.
For example, I was in a meeting recently where I stated that new information that had emerged would have an impact on the "design" - which I assumed would be interpreted as "system design" or "application design" because that's what it meant in my head at the moment I said it.
But in this particular meeting, my use of "design" was interpreted as "visual design" or "user interface design" which led to a moment of confusion.
This wasn't the first time I had encountered ambiguity around the shared definition of "design" as a concept. And I'm sure it won't be the last.
When I used to run a consulting company that focused on enterprise application design and development, I had a prospect red-line any mention of "design" hours because they "only needed the development hours."
They thought "design" was just the look-and-feel of the application, and they "didn't want anything fancy."
It was difficult in that moment to explain how "design" was the planning and organization of the application itself, as well as the individual components that would be developed and integrated to implement the design.
Eventually I just removed the ambiguity and combined "Design" hours with "Development" hours and stopped separating the concepts on proposals and Statements of Work moving forward.
This didn't solve any problems of course, it just kicked the can on the conceptual barrier but exposed how such an essential skill and process is so overlooked and undervalued.
Design is everywhere. It is something we all participate in whether we realize it or not.
So why do we all think of design so differently?
What does "design" mean to you?
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