What is Design Strategy?
It comes down to making decisions.
I often joke when someone asks me what I do, claiming that I've taken two of the hardest-to-define, most ambiguous terms in business—design and strategy—and merged them to define my profession. With this perspective in mind, let's begin by defining each of these separate terms before we circle back to combining them to defining "what I do."
Design
Oxford defines design as:
"Purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object."
While this definition is serviceable, I prefer the perspective of Erika Hall and Mike Monteiro, co-founders of Mule Design, who define design as:
"A set of decisions with constraints that are made to solve a problem."
When working on a project, I strive to do the following:
Identify a problem to solve: I ask numerous questions to pinpoint the issue at hand. How is this problem affecting users of the service or product? What impact does it have on the organization? What would occur if we didn't address this problem? Are people already finding workarounds for it, and if so, how? Asking questions and actively listening to those providing answers is the most effective way to identify the problem. Questioning is also invaluable in various contexts when seeking to discover and define a design problem. Stakeholders, sales representatives, frontline customer service staff, and service/product users all need to be interviewed.
Collaborate with people to make decisions: This is where activities like workshopping, co-creation, and prototyping, which are common in a design thinkers toolkit, come into play during the design strategy process. Decisions can range from something as minor as selecting button colors to something as significant as determining how a prototype fits into the larger system and service. Regardless of the scale, decisions must be made to craft a design solution. While designers can certainly make decisions independently (e.g., choosing button colors), major decisions should involve a team. Design is a team sport, and this teamwork is most needed when big design decisions are being made.
Is the design process more complex than what I've outlined here? Undoubtedly, yes. There are numerous variables to consider when navigating a design process. Nevertheless, I still like to distill it down to this straightforward equation:
"A problem to solve + a series of choices that lead to a functional, sustainable, and ethical solution = design."
Strategy
Oxford defines strategy as:
"A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim."
Deviating from the Oxford definition, I believe a plan is not a strategy. Planning is a component of strategy, but it is not strategy itself. For a more precise definition, I turn to Roger Martin, a leading expert in modern business strategy:
"Strategy is a set of interrelated and powerful choices that position the organization to win."
Both of these definitions share a common theme: the importance of making decisions or choices.
So, to combine design and strategy, all we need to do is make good decisions. Well, yes sort of. Let's break down how these two types of choices (design and business/strategic) can overlap significantly and differ in some aspects.
Design and strategy decision similarities:
Alignment with business goals: Design decisions should not only prioritize the user experience but also consider how they contribute to a company's financial success. While I may not be the biggest fan of capitalism, it's the prevailing economic system, and design decisions must serve business objectives.
Human-centric focus: Both design and strategic decisions should prioritize the well-being and satisfaction of the people who use and provide a service or product. Now this is where design can really come in and make a difference because obviously not everyone is going to champion the users the same way a designer will. But hopefully there are more people caring about being human-human centric in your organization than not.
Collaborative decision-making: In both design and business, the best decisions often result from involving a diverse group of individuals in the decision-making process. Of course, I think many final decisions can and should be made by a single decision-maker. However, I've witnessed too many instances where terrible decisions were made by someone operating in isolation or, even worse, within an echo chamber.
Where design and strategy decisions differ:
Focus and purpose: Design decisions primarily target improving specific aspects of a product, service, or experience. In contrast, strategic choices involve broader, big-picture thinking that can affect an organization's goals, purpose, and direction. While design decisions can and should influence these aspects, especially in service design, strategic business decisions can be made independently of design.
Timeframe: Design decisions can yield results relatively quickly, often within weeks or months, whereas the effects of sound business decisions may take years to materialize. Service design again, in particular, often operates on longer timescales in alignment with business decisions.
Process: Design choices often emerge from a creative process that includes workshops, prototyping, journey mapping, and user testing. Strategic choices, on the other hand, frequently involve financial analysis, market research, and high-level business analytics. While design can benefit from these activities and outputs, they aren't always necessary for a successful design process.
After analyzing these definitions, similarities, and differences, it's evident that there are more similarities than differences between design and (business) strategy decisions. To quote Mr. Watson, "Good design is good business."
For those who identify as design strategists or strategic designers and struggle to explain their role ( the holidays are coming up and you know you are going to need to talk about this with you parents and aunts and uncles.) consider a simple response like this:
"I leverage design to facilitate human- (and hopefully planet) centered business decisions."
And if that doesn't quite resonate, you can always fall back on the classic: "I create websites and apps."
My favorite things of the week
I’ve been making the case to several people for the value of being a generalist within the design world so it’s good to see a quote from Don Norman mentioning this idea:
Several years ago Sarah Drummond wrote a great article on how designers are focusing to much on the how of service design rather than its outcomes. I have been guilty of doing this, especially as of late, so this was a good reminder to focus on those outcomes while continuing to get better on the how part of service design.
Jon Kolko points out that phrases like “You’re all Set” is a canary in the coal mine when it comes to the decline of human-centered design.
I’ve been reading and seeing some well thought out and well timed push back towards the love affair some designers have for design systems and the design tools we use (aka Figmaism). This article by Matic Pelci adds to this conversation by warning us of the dangers of turning designers into factory workers.
And finally I leave you with a good quote from my friend Chris Do. Something to ponder heading into the weekend if you’re thinking about ways to find and share your gift like I am.
