Time to start a conversation about WHY Industrial Design works

BT Whole-home Mesh wifi: The Alloy ID team used early cognitive prototypes to test and develop both the app and device in parallel with the packaging to achieve an effortless, fully-coordinated end to end user experience that delivered UX-award-winning market leadership, outselling Google Home.

Following up Gus Desbarat’s recent BIDA news Item ‘Time to practice what we preach’, we asked Gus to reflect on WHY Industrial Design works, based on his many years of successful practise. And with a good provocation at the end.

‘I recently called on my colleagues in the Industrial Design (ID) profession to start sharing insights with young designers about WHY our activities create value, to help them understand their role better and plan smarter more rewarding careers. So, to get the ball rolling, here is my starter for ten; not definitive or complete, just what I believe after almost 40 years of doing the job. 

I tend to avoid just describing myself as a ‘designer’. I have both humanistic and engineering design backgrounds, but I don’t sell my taste in decoration and I don’t solve differential equations. What I’ve done, constantly, my whole career, is manage the human interactions with technology innovation. This is typically delivered by multi-disciplinary teams, for organisations. This role is no different to Dreyfuss or Rams, so like them, I’ve always considered myself an ‘Industrial’ Designer. 

My career has seen extreme change, mainly from the digitisation of life and the design tools we use. I’ve gone from rendering cars in magic markers to creating connected-service flows in Figma, with hundreds of 3D CAD telephone designs in between. Designers coming through now will see much broader change in both how they work and what they are called upon to design. Their skill requirements will need to constantly evolve, like mine have, but they will also need to be grounded by an enduring knowledge core that is clear enough to be recognised but flexible enough to adapt. 

Back when I was BIDA chair and the Skill Council asked us refresh the UK’s National Occupational Standard for Industrial Design, we had to start by defining the purpose of ID in a ‘unique and enduring way’. Our answer was that “Industrial Designers ensure anticipation of human behaviour leads and improves innovation”. This isn’t just a neat answer to the dreaded ‘what do you do’ question at parties, the ‘human behaviour’ role is the solid foundation for any conversation about WHY design works. 

The other key word is ‘anticipation’. Design & Innovation professionals aren’t just expected to have ideas, they are expected to have ideas that deliver investment returns. For engineers this means backing up their visions of, say bridge structures, with the ability to anticipate and prevent ‘failure modes’ by doing endless calculations and stress-testing functional prototypes. 

The ‘failure mode’ that we own, uniquely, as Industrial Designers, is human behaviour. We matter because human decisions, from ‘which one do I buy’ to ‘which button do I press next’, ultimately control commercial success. There is a large and growing body of scientific evidence that these decisions are hugely affected by what behavioural economists call ‘present bias’. This is also known as W.Y.S.I.A.T.I: What you see is all there is.. (For more background, every modern designer should, by now, have read Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking fast and slow’). 

Present bias is more than just a powerful argument for the importance of ID, it is the root of WHY the many skills we apply actually work. Our renderings, animations, models etc.. are cognitive prototypes that support research exercises that add value by anticipating future behaviours with products and services at a fraction of the cost of fully functional prototypes or the real thing. So while there is plenty of short-term value in the specific skills needed to create, say, beautiful 3D Keyshot renders, the core enduring professional skill young designers need is the broader ability to decide how they can create the most realistic, fast, simulation of the future human interactions they are creating. This ‘cognitive prototyping’ model also helps present new designs as hypotheses, continuously tested and refined. This is also useful because it’s actually no more than a description of the classic scientific method, which is widely respected and valued by non-designers. 

Even the classic ‘creativity’ pitch for design fit this WHY argument. A rich and vivid creative imagination is obviously an extremely cost-effective way of anticipating future experiences, but this isn’t unique to Industrial Design. Einstein used to routinely run A-bomb tests, in his head, on the train. 

But this main WHY benefit isn’t risk free. To earn its commercial return, a design needs to survive a complex technical and logistical implementation process. This is why ‘innovation continuity’ is my other main argument for ‘WHY’ design works. 

Every time I’ve done a service design ‘baseline’ blueprint, I’ve been amazed by how often customer’s actual journey’s jump between very separate operating silos, and how often the bad things happen ‘in the gaps’. Similar gaps also happen along development timelines, from concept to production. I once had a CEO client explain my value by telling me that I was the only other project stakeholder whose duties, like him, went from ‘boardroom to toolroom’. 

Industrial Designer’s control over the ‘look, feel and behaviour’ of an innovation has a broad controlling impact on technical development risk. As one of only the 2nd graduating class of the RCA/Imperial Joint course I was lucky to be in a vanguard of more holistic designers equipped to deliver innovation continuity across multi-disciplinary teams and along complex, global innovation delivery chains. 

In countless situations over the years, my ability to balance customer experience and technical risk has inspired much smarter, achievable solutions or ended damaging conflicts between specialists. Any young designers who feel content and comfortable in their studios, finessing their visuals, need to know that if they want to progress, they will need to think outside this bubble and take responsibility for the consequences of their design decisions. 

My final ‘WHY’ quote comes from a very dear and long term client who answered my ‘WHY do you think Industrial Design works?’ question by saying “simple, it’s your attention to detail”. 

Or, as I have often said to clients: we build longer innovation ‘to do’ lists.. 

Why do you think Industrial Design works? ‘