Silent Design: Can anyone be a designer?

Regardless of your education, you are a designer.

Before you disagree, let me prove it to you.

What is design?

Webster's definition to the rescue:

Design / verb

1: to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan; devise, contrive

Design a system for tracking inventory

2: to conceive and plan out in your mind

He designed the perfect crime

3: to have as a purpose: Intend

She designed to excel in her studies

4: to devise for a specific function or end

A book designed primarily as a college textbook

There are more complex definitions, but I want to build on a simple idea. If there is a purpose, a plan, or an intention, and you have a solution, perhaps you are a designer. 

Who/what is a designer?

Designer: You have formal education or training to equip you for the creation of artifacts. You also can define a Designer as someone that produces things professionally using design methods. 

designer: You don’t recognize yourself as a capital D Designer, but as part of your work and life you participate in covert activities that lead to artifacts (stuff is designed). 

Dusting off a definition that has been around since the 80s, you can see where I am going with this:

'Everyone who designs devises a course of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artefacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state. Design, so construed, is the core of all professional training: it is the principal mark that distinguishes the professions from the sciences'

Simon, Herbert A The Sciences of the Artificial The MIT Press (1982) 

A Designer and a designer walk into a meeting…

I have sat through meetings ready to pull my hair out. Someone comes up with a solution that is based on personal preference, an out-of-date trend, a lack of knowledge related to Design/Audience/etc. The formally trained Designers at the table, myself included, spend the meeting educating the problem solver on what is possible, explaining why a trend is dead, and on and on.

But the problem solver means well. They want to be part of the process. They are passionate about the product/business/idea. They likely have had to solve problems by themselves in the past, and they are not interested in being excluded from solving them now.

Suddenly we have to work together to solve a problem.

Before there was a Designer in the room, the organization functioned. There were activities happening, solutions found, and likely many could have fallen under the scope of Design. But they were not classified as such. This loops back to the idea of covert design. 

What is silent design?

Defined in 1987 by Peter Gorb and Angela Dumas as:

“[Silent Design] is carried out by individuals who are not called designers and who would not consider themselves to be designers.”

Why you should care about Silent Design.

Silent designers may not even be aware that they are participating in it. Tension is often felt when there is a conflict with the formal Designer in your business or the freelance Designer you hired.

Is Silent Design bad?

No. In fact, I think you should be proud that you or someone on your team are solving problems.

Now that you know, what should you do?

I challenge you to focus on how you can cooperate and create opportunities for the experts to shine. You also won’t always have a Designer available, and may not even think to hire one for the job. 

Let me give you some examples.

Have you ever started a new job, and quickly saw gaps in the hiring process? Or perhaps the lighting in the fitting rooms was unflattering at the retail store you work at. Maybe there was a lot of food waste happening in the kitchen at the restaurant you run.

You saw a problem. You made a plan. You implemented a plan. The result was positive.

Your hiring process improved and more quality candidates were found. Sales went up at the retail shop as clients felt great in the fitting room. Or you increased the profit margin by decreasing food waste.

We cannot assume that the only problem solver around is a Designer. And activities that may not seem like they need a Designer, need a solution the is Designed.

“To assume that if the job entails design, it should be undertaken by a professional designer is to adopt an over simplistic view. The individual undertaking the work, oblivious of its design content, may well be operating effectively.”

Gorb and Dumas Silent Design (1987)

It is why I want you to see yourself as a Silent Designer. It isn’t you versus a Designer or you versus the Marketing team. We are in this together. We have separate strengths, and by cooperating, we can create even stronger solutions.