[VBD] Some frequently asked questions about value-based design

By now, you’ve learned what value-based design is, what it involves, and why it’s important. You also haven’t unsubscribed from my list and salted the earth! Feels nice, y’all.

In this lesson, we’ll talk about some of the skeptical questions we hear from people about value-based design. Shockingly, it is not a totally uncontroversial practice! So let’s answer these one by one.

Why can’t design just happen on its own?

First code, now this. Isn’t all of this non-design beside the point?

It is, yes. In an ideal world, we’d be specialists, doing design qua design. We wouldn’t have to learn code. We wouldn’t have to learn measurement. We would stay in our lane and be trusted to make all of the big decisions.

But design, when it works best, makes big decisions. That means design needs to be supported by those in power. And in order for that to happen, design needs to prove itself.

Our work doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in an organizational context. And if you’re going to push any work across the finish line, you need to know both how it’s built (code!) and how it’s supported.

So no, design can’t exist on its own. It might have functioned in that capacity back before computers existed, but that doesn’t give us a pass now.

Why is it incumbent on the designer to measure design?

For a few reasons:

• You get to control the conversation. Trust me, it’s far easier for you to do your job if you’re able to define the terms of how its impact is measured. Critique becomes easier, follow-through becomes easier, and the client is usually happier.
• You get to connect the work to its outcomes. If someone else is defining success for a project, design may be cut out of the process entirely. By both designing and measuring, you make that less likely to happen.
• Design, as a practice, is arbitrarily defined. Who said that design didn’t have to involve measurement? AIGA? Paul Rand? Why are we taking this as an accepted idea in the first place?

In short, if you define the terms of the game, then it’s a lot easier for you to play it. Why wouldn’t you do that, if given the opportunity?

Wouldn’t it be easier to find someplace that supported design, instead?

Everybody knows that executive support is required for design to succeed. What would that even look like, though? Someone having blind faith in your process and giving you a sandbox to play in? Somebody picking up the Tim Brown book at an airport newsstand, reading it on the flight, and becoming converted to your way of thinking?

The world doesn’t work like that.

What do you think motivates people to buy design? Is it because Steve Jobs held up a cell phone onstage in 2008? Is it because design helps people? Or is it because design helps both people and business?

It’s tremendously myopic to think that people will just blindly believe in us. We have to do the work to show that what we do matters. We haven’t done enough, and we probably won’t do enough for at least the rest of my career.

Isn’t it sad that we have to make design serve capitalism?

Honestly, it’s just sad that capitalism still exists in 2024. So I feel this, y’all. But ultimately, we’ve gotta eat. Capitalism is how we do so.

If you’re looking to practice creative work without serving capitalism, you might want to become an artist, instead. You’ll find that art is still a capitalistic thing, but at least you’ll be able to do what you want without having your clients change the work.

If you’re looking to burn down the system and start over, there are many resources & spaces for you to do so, and this mailing list is unfortunately not going to be one of them. I personally do what I can to link & build in my local community, and then I keep the lights on during the day. I suspect I’m not alone.

Expand the practice & profit

In short, design isn’t doing enough to prove its value in 2024. And we all probably think we are. After all, design appears to be everywhere now. Why wouldn’t people get it?

That doesn’t change the fact that people don’t get it. It’s on us to show them. This is a tremendous blind spot in our industry, and you need to get conscious to it.

That’s why we’ve put together our self-paced workshop.

By learning how to expand your practice to understand how it’s viewed, you’ll be able to control the conversation around your impact. You’ll be put in higher-leverage situations. And you’ll get

We want nothing more than to see more designers succeed, especially given the headwinds we’ve all faced over the past couple of years.

Design has a place. It’s time for you to take it.

On Wednesday, we’re opening a limited discount for our course. It will never be this cheap again. We’re excited & honored to welcome you in.