Design documentaries have an important role in building awareness about design and its role in society. That role is even more important when design is seen as a competitive, strategic advantage – a topic covered in InVision’s Design Disruptors. Featuring product designers from the world’s biggest tech companies like Airbnb, Google, or Twitter, ‘Design Disruptors’ is definitely a must-see for anyone who wants to understand design today.
The documentary came out in 2016, but I got the chance to see it only last year when Designer Movies Nights hosted a screening.
While it’s a good movie and I liked it, I couldn’t help feeling biased by the end.
Here’s why.
The good about ‘Design Disruptors’
In a way, watching ‘Design Disruptors’ was like meeting with that old friend who understands you without having to explain yourself.
Whenever people ask me what I do and I say I’m a UX Researcher, their first reaction is: ‘Huh? What’s that?’ Most of them think that they haven’t heard me well enough the first time.
I can’t blame them – UX researcher is one of the newest job titles in the market. Sometimes, I think it would be easier if I said I’m an astronaut. Pretty much anyone has an idea about what astronauts do: they go into space, maybe on the moon if they’re lucky.
Things are not so common knowledge when it comes to user experience (UX), product design, or UX research as these are relatively new fields. Yes, UX and product design are popular – but few outside of the industry actually understand how these fields work. Also, even if we’re far from the early days of interaction design, there still are quite a lot of people who think that design is about making things pretty as opposed to solving problems and building useful products.
So naturally, when I saw designers up on a big screen, explaining that they do the same thing, I was over the moon, to say the least. It was like… finally, someone understands. I’m not alone in the world. There are other people – besides my colleagues in the office – who share this mindset and who know what digital product design is about.
And there’s more than just the feeling of being understood. It was also about sharing the same view on design and its value.
On top of that, hearing established product designers talk about prototyping and testing – processes we also follow in our work – went straight to heart, too.
The bad and the ugly about ‘Design Disruptors’
I was definitely enjoying the movie when, about three quarters in, something dawned on me.
All the designers featured in the movie were working at big, established companies. Pinterest, Airbnb, Lyft, Twitter, Facebook – they’re all huge, relatively young and I would venture to say UX mature companies. If I’m not mistaken, the oldest company featured in the movie is Salesforce, which was founded in 1999.
Even if Design Disruptors put forward a good perspective on product design, it does so mainly from the perspective of specific companies. Incidentally, these happen to be some of the most talked-about and some of the most successful companies to date – of course, ignoring the current COVID-19 situation which turned the world upside down. All the companies featured in ‘Design disruptors’ are companies that can afford to invest heavily in design.
This prompted me to think a bit. What about smaller startups – let’s say startups that raised their first round of investment? Or older, established companies that are challenged to transition to and embrace digital? Do the same rules apply? Is it mostly about finding and solving a problem for them as well?
Why I think this isn’t so good
It’s easy to invest in design when you’re a business that’s very well evaluated or a product that’s reached a critical number of people.
But that’s not the norm, that’s the exception.
In real life, most of us still work hard to prove the value of design and iteration. In real life, from my experience, design is a lot more about building cooperation, bringing people who work across different departments together, and getting them to try things they haven’t done before. It’s about getting them to be open to experimentation when they’re used to having the answers.
On top of that, even before COVID-19, the tech and startup industry was already dealing with layoffs. This also kind of made me think that there’s more to it than solving a problem and thinking that the money would come.
With all this, I’ve come to believe that design in itself is not enough. Even if it provides a competitive advantage for some companies, design also needs to have a sound structure in place to support it.
Design is not the secret magic ingredient, design is one of the elements in the equation for a successful company. I’ve written about that here.
Wrapping up…
If you want to get closer to understanding the current world, Design Disruptors is definitely a must-see – I think it also won a Webby award back in 2017) It is important to have an ideal as to what digital and product design should look like.
At the same time, it’s important to look beyond the hype and to get a well-rounded perspective.
Also, as design becomes more and more intertwined with technology, it starts crossing paths with business as well. Design needs a healthy environment in order to thrive. Otherwise, it’s just like applying a band-aid that doesn’t really address the root problem.
Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash