Methods of Production

As the modern movement emerged in fields like industrial design and architecture a designer’s most important asset was their understanding of materials and production. There’s a sense of modesty in the designs of the 60s and 70s. A sense that designers were chipping away at the usual facade to uncover something about the things they were creating.

In UI design, the methods of production (programming) have become so flexible and abstract that exposing them seems less valuable. The fact that the work is so unconstrained has caused many designers to become less engaged in implementation leaving the choice of tools and methods purely up to developers. This has triggered some exciting growth and specialization as designers search for new frames of reference (e.g. User Experience Design). That said, the lack of continuity between design and implementation is going to hurt the field as we face the limitations of new technologies.

As we move into an era of natural language interfaces we’re regularly hitting the limits of what the technology can do. Just watch someone using Siri for the first time and you’ll see this. Yet designers aren’t exploring and exposing these limitations. They aren’t pulling back the facade to find value in the patterns and materials that form these products. Instead we’ve regressed back to decoration and novelty, and we seem to be designing and marketing tools like Siri as if its limitations don’t exist.

Once again we need designers to take an interest in the materials and methods they’re designing for. It’s is the only way we’re going to uncover the value of technically limited products like natural language or predictive interfaces.