design lessons
for 2021

“Many people assume that empathy is an inherent skill of all designers and, therefore, easy. This mythology is deeply problematic and detrimental to human-centered practice.”
— Caitlin Chase

“Empathy is feeling what someone else is feeling. It is attempting to crawl into their minds and hearts and experience what they’re experiencing. This is impossible. We cannot feel what it is to be anyone but ourselves. (...) Compassion, unlike empathy, allows us to remain rational. It’s what allows us to act when someone gets injured in front of us. Compassion allows us to take action in the face of their pain; we trust their anger and pain without taking it on.”
— Tatiana Mac

“This is a moment where everybody must make a choice. What are you willing to do differently to root out the white supremacy the technology sector perpetuates? Are you going to continue to uphold the status quo or are you going to move fast and break up the old way of doing things?”
— Tiffani Ashley Bell

Design is about prioritization: saying no and taking out what’s non-essential. Creating technology that's user-friendly and clear is more important than flexing one's design smarts.

Full app designs are now shared on the Figma community, research templates are shared on Notion, front-end code on Codepen, and illustrations are easily accessible and customizable through plugins like Blush. The trend of sharing and remixing reveals that the secret to better design lies in the wisdom of the collective, rather than the genius of the individual. 

From the insightful reports of the Pudding, the activism of initiatives like the Anti-Eviction Mapping project, and the art pieces created by Mona Chalabi, data visualizations create narratives to help us better understand the world around us.

We have been following the invisible COVID-19 virus through charts and data visualizations and, in some cases, numbers distorted to fit political agendas. When we have events at the scale of a global pandemic, data is at the center of the conversations. Designers have a responsibility to explain how to read the data they’re presenting. One data point (or data alone) can't be the only tool used to measure an issue.

Data visualization can be a tool for prediction (and intervention) of the future. The much-discussed "flatten the curve" graphic which circulated in the early stages of the pandemic is a great example of how a visualization can communicate the risks of inaction. Data simulation can help us confront large-scale, complex issues like the economy, health, and climate change by modeling the likely outcomes of various courses of action. 

Group thinking (sometimes disguised as “workshop” or “design thinking”) is a powerful tool for bringing stakeholders into the design process — but on its own it won’t lead to products with a strong point of view. Don't overcomplicate your process by turning everything into a committee decision. Sometimes you just need to design it.

Our goal as designers should be to seek clarity, not to impose a path to achieve it.

Your product doesn’t need more engagement. There are smarter ways of generating value for your company and for your users. Think harder.

We’re one third of the way through the list. Let’s look at some exceptional work we’ve featured in our newsletter this year.

Someone in your family forwards you a conspiracy theory message. The content is clearly misleading but presented in such a compelling way that it’s hard to ignore. You do some research and reply with an article from a reliable source which refutes the theory. It's a long, well-argued, in-depth piece and… It's behind a paywall. 

Accessibility is a mindset; it should be embedded in everything you do.

Companies are (finally) starting to prioritize the task of making their services accessible to everyone. This means that accessibility consultancy is becoming a big business — ask the right questions before hiring accessibility experts.

Read the work of Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC.

In Western culture, we visualize time as linear and progressive. But that's not the only way time can be represented. 

Focus your portfolio on showing your craft, your polish, and how much you care about your work. When you get to the interview, you’ll have plenty of time to walk them through your case studies from top to bottom.

Charge your full price.

The energy used to transfer data over the wire, to keep data centers and networks operating, and to power the user’s device all generates pollution (475 grams of CO2e per kWh, to be more precise). As digital designers, we don’t often think of the “waste” generated by our products, but even good web performance can map to lower energy usage. Start a conversation with your team on how to make your product greener.

Now a 70+ billion-dollar industry, facial coverings are here to stay. In addition to saving lives, masks have become a political and cultural statement, signifying one’s belief in science and concern for others’ wellbeing.

“This is your time. No one else has had a time like this before. You can come out of it older and wiser, or you could simply come out of it. Both are enough. You are enough. What matters most is you and what you need, right now, today.”
— Jen Goertzen

Now that work environment and personal space are blending, it’s even more important to remember to focus on aspects of our lives beyond work. Viviane Castillo's series of articles on self-care for designers has some great insights on how we can make time for ourselves. 

Design for peace of mind, not engagement.

No matter how senior you are.

Do your homework. Otherwise, you’re simply erasing design history. It's ok to write about a topic that other people have extensively written about, if you approach it from a position of humility, rather than authority.

After 12,000+ article submissions received this year, "how-to" articles are still the most popular, but the ones that go deeper into “why” get the best repercussion from our readers. Popular doesn’t mean good.

No bootcamps or formulas can guarantee what companies will be looking for or how the market will behave.

We can’t compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction with our coworkers by adding more communication channels or scheduling more meetings. Think quality over quantity. 

While design thinking, design sprints, and other popular frameworks have allowed our field to reach new audiences, these tools have also created the self-serving perception that we need to "how might we" every problem we see. Stop. The increasingly complex problems we face as designers and citizens require a more thoughtful approach.

“You face wicked problems by struggling with them, not by solutioning them. You argue, you iterate, you fail, you grieve, you fight.”
— Maggie Gram

We asked a few designers and authors to share their thoughts with us:

“Sometimes the hard part of problem-solving is not finding a solution, but agreeing there’s a problem in the first place.”
— Sacha Greif

“We should still be grateful for doing what we love and make the best of it.”
– David Teodorescu

“How does this thing I create impact the world? Is it helping future generations thrive or does it leave them with more unsolvable problems?”
— Aga Szóstek

“I’ve realized how many people want something to belong to and to believe in. We have an opportunity to design for positive connections and meaningful relationships.”
— Meghan Wenzel