LET US DISCUSS WHAT DESIGN CAN DO - RATHER THAN WHAT DESIGN IS

For decades – in Denmark as well as in most other parts of the world – an amazing number of people has occupied themselves with what has always seemed like a key question; what is design? We are not in any way diminishing the importance of these endeavours as means of articulating and communi-cating - thus creating awareness and understanding of – the value of design. The result is greater understanding of design issues both in industry, in the political as well as the public domain. However, as design has changed its character and meaning over the past decades – almost constantly, continuously being qualified by new add-ons, one must assume that the same will be the case for the decades to come.

Thus, our suggestion is that a more meaningful approach could be what design has already – and actually – contributed, what it currently brings to the table of new solutions and which role one could expect design to play in the future – to the extent, of course, that any one of us has the right to predict tomorrow.

Design does make a difference to artifacts and enhances physical objects. So far so good; no-one seems to contest design’s ability to beautify, simplify and add meaning to artefacts and products, adding value throughout the value chain from manufacturing through sales and distribution to the user – in the word's most inclusive sense. The examples are many and well known. Our affluent lives are full of well-designed products like furniture and light fixtures, kitchenware and home electronics, clothes and accessories, cars, park benches, milk cartons...

All seemingly inevitable either because of the functions they fulfil, or because they cater for other, more subtle needs in our everyday lives. Material design contributes to define our lives and our identities. The objects we choose to make part of our work or play, homes or communities influence on both our percep-tion of quality of life, but they also help us understand and master well-known as well as unexpected challenges in our daily lives.   

As a matter of fact, material design might be of even greater importance outside of our private sphere, even though not all of us will necessarily be confronted with it or take advantage of it directly. Such design could be applied to products dedicated to special user groups, such as assistive technologies disabled people, medical equipment, gauges or CNC machines, lifts or drilling equipment, feeding robots for animals or cabin interiors for military helicopters. Actually, a product category, financial transaction or professional service where material design does not already play a significant role seems almost unthinkable, as it influences on the quality and durability, functionality and usability of every single object being part of the delivery or value chain – from choice of materials and construction through manufacturing processes and assembly to distribution, sales, usage and disposal.

More and more often, it doesn't even stop there, as the adaptability of the disposed product to another value chain plays an increasingly important role. However - just like design adds value to material products by making it more precious, more relevant, or more competitive, design adds value by means of the same enhancement to immaterial deliveries such as private or public services, client relations or business transactions. By enhancing the interaction between the supplier of a service and you as the consumer of that service design strengthens the relation, influences on your preferences and changes both yours and the supplier's behaviour – either in correlation with the way in which the physical space or the digital user interface in which the transaction takes place has been designed, but often simply by offering a better experience within already existing parameters.

Design can be applied to a specific solution to a specific challenge, but it can also be applied to a context – be it a physical space or environment or a configuration. If the context is physical in the form of a room or a built structure, the design will often be labelled architecture, interior architectture, or environ-mental design. By organizing space through objects, light and sound, activities, and objectives – applying the same parameters as earlier described – not only the space, but also the relations and experiences for which the space is dedi-cated are designed, adding value to the transactions in question, as if it were an object or a service.

Obviously environmental designers add lots of value to private spaces like our homes or the CEO's office. But the real and vastly untapped potential of interior architecture and design lies in more public spaces, where transparency and legibility, light, sound, and colours become a question of safety and security, treatment and care, health, life and death, such as for example work environ-ments and institutions for education and care. The same goes for spaces - or rooms – which are not even considered such by many, because they are out in the open; the design of streets and squares, courts and yards. To design the environments in which people work or play, make decisions, or philosophize, celebrate, or mourn is at least as important a role for design as any of the previously described categories.

Design also determines the way in which we communicate with each other – as individual to individual and system to system, system to individual and individual to system. In this context, "system" might represent public authorities of any kind, but also companies, organisations, or movements. One of the most con-spicuous examples of such communication design is the way companies through branding and identity design try to convince consumers to choose their product or service instead of a competitor's – both through media exposure prior to the transaction, at the point of transaction through packaging and both the physical and relational point of sales design. Along the same principles public authorities use communication design extensively in their dialogue with enterprises and individuals through anything from flyers and reports to web portals and self-service-systems. Other examples of communication design come from the ways in which we search and share knowledge in our modern age with Google and Wikipedia as pioneers, but also how our ways of communication with each other changes rapidly as new user interfaces and social media are made available to us such as Skype, Facebook and Twitter. In the physical world, wayfinding design, enables us to find around in complex and often unknown environments. One might say that the need for communication design and design that communi-cates, to facilitate all the deliberations we all have to engage in on a daily basis, increases constantly as does the complexity of our lives and our environments.

Until now, design has primarily related to the aforementioned areas; physical objects - and to an increasing degree services, physical environments, and communication. Including all the subordi-nate categories, which, for any number of good reasons, will not be specifically dealt with here. The domain currently being conquered by design, however, is the more subtle and rather intangible; how do we reach the goals we set? Some call it strategic design, others call it concept design while others again prefer the concept of "design thinking".

Irrespective of terminology, it covers the theory that design is a highly relevant approach to dealing with challenges, which do not necessarily call for a physical object, a specific service, a dedicated environment, or a new communicative tool to be addressed and solved. Design has moved out of the domain in which a delivery is most often a tangible answer to a brief and into a domain, where design is seen as a valid resource where large, complex challenges are at stake, and where the designer works in close and equal collaboration with all kinds of other professional disciplines. Such challenges could be efficiency or profitability related - most probably on long term, or it could be related to local, regional or national identity or external relations, to loyalty issues and internal relations in large corporations, to competitiveness and innovation capacity, democratic processes and engagement, cross-sectorial dialogue and diversity issues. Not to forget the probably most urgent of all challenges - the need for a more sustain-able corporate and political development and to a more responsible and balanced global order.

This rather radical change and enlargement of design as a concept and pro-fession – which is inevitable – calls for cautious guardianship of design's original meaning and its meaningfulness for the individual. Design as the key to better solutions to anyone’s own specific problem, design as the door to experiences which move you and activate your senses, design as means to improve every-day life, to simplify what doesn't need to be complicated and to make the inacces-sible accessible. Design as a way of making it easier for every one of us to under-stand and to relate to the world and the local environment we are part of.

I see design as a concept and a profession; as a vital tool to increase corporate, national and regional competitiveness; ”design for profit”, as a significant factor in terms of influencing people's lives through the products and services, spaces and environments, relations and experiences that shape our everyday; ”design for people” and as a pivotal resource with regard to promoting more sustainable products and services through the choice of materials and processes with conse-quences for sourcing, manufacturing, use and disposal – in addition to the power of design in terms of proposing responsible choices through consumption and behaviour; ”design for planet”.

In this article, we will focus on how we believe that design can play an important role with massive influence on the quality of life for individuals, and for individuals with special needs in particular.

Design for people - design for all

Design has always started with the aspirations and dreams of the individual, its acknowledged as well as unarticulated needs – long before concepts like user-driven innovation and user-centered design were introduced. Notwithstanding the fact that design not always had the positive effects on the user or humankind as such, that the designer had envisaged or intended.

Design fundamentally builds on an analysis of what could possibly be done to improve the perceived quality of any given situation. Approached in a design methodological manner, the analysis will lead to any number of alternative scenarios – all of which represent an improvement compared to the present. The ultimate choice will most often reflect conscious deliberations of different and often contradictory concerns. The most immediate and intuitive adoption of any solution, however, seems to occur when human factor interests are given the same weight and priority as the economical, and for a number of good reasons.

Design respects the sensual sensitivity of the user. Not only the visual but rather the combined – and rarely rational – sensual reaction triggered by the experi-ence. If the solution resonates aesthetically with the user, it will automatically be perceived as relevant, thus somehow appeal to any one out of numerous forms of engagement. In the case of a physical object, it might incite usage or merely visual or tactile enjoyment. A well-designed service or relation invites the user into active engage-ment, while well designed - most often visual - communi-cation is more easily and immediately understood - increasing the probability of the user actually relating to the message communicated.

However, design is also a means of promoting involvement, inclusion, and coherence by offering access to products and services which are often - and rightly so – perceived exclusive and prohibited by many because of their physical or mental impairment, or simply because they are different form the vast majority. Sometimes, product or services need to be designed specifically to such – often marginal – groups, but more often than we think, a more inclusive approach to designing products and services – taking into consideration the needs of both able-bodied and disabled users in the development process would benefit all. This concept and methodology – often called Design for All or Universal Design – fortunately is being adopted by more and more sectors and product and service categories, not least because such demands of inclusion are currently being fronted by European Council and are also articulated specifically in UN's Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.

Irrespective of whether one is disabled or not, at one point in our lives, the challenges we all face on a daily basis, tend to appear increasingly complex to many of us – even complicated. However, as design and designers have clearly contributed to this it seems quite probable that they are also able to a reverse contribution; to simplify and to make things more comprehendible and acces-sible. By removing the superfluous and focusing on the essential or by making everyday choices easier and better informed – not by fewer or more, but by better and more instinctively legible alternatives – be it with respect to tangible products or environments or to the services, relations and communication we rely upon.

A quite new approach to the exploitation of design's potential has materialized in a row of projects, often referred to as service design. This concept covers design of services in general – private as well as public. The private services have already been discussed in a previous chapter, as have the measurable effects in terms of savings and effectiveness in the public sector. Another – more subtle, but equally important effect within the public sector, however, is the reduction or elimination of barriers between the individual citizen and the system that design has proved to offer. Confidence and tolerance are fundamental preconditions for a meaningful dialogue between the two parties – achieved through adding familiarity and relevance, by involving the user in the development or customi-zation of the service and by creating a physical and communicative environment, which resonates with the user's feeling of comfort. All of which are key elements in the design approach.

Knowledge of design and the ability to evaluate any given product, service or message is important to build an understanding of space and the objects we are surrounded by as well as the information and the experiences we are subjected to. Understanding the intentions behind any given solution is crucial to decipher the codes and signals embedded in the solution – enabling us to make better and more informed choices. Confidence in the products and services we meet as consumers and in man-made environments leads to self-confidence through a better understanding of our own identities and a more conscious relation to our experiences and our choices. Thus, a fundamental understanding of design is a vital element in any human being's breeding.

Until now, Design for All or universal design has been regarded as a specific approach to design – often based on a different analysis than other design solutions, with greater focus on people's disabilities than their abilities. In a contemporary conception of design, this specificity is exchanged with a more holistic approach – appreciating diversity and addressing individual needs as equal to the needs of the masses. In a contemporary design conception, co-designing is the key to accommodating different needs and capabilities; more and product and services are delivered from the hands of the designer as a concept followed by guidelines for implementation to suit individual needs. Not for the sake of the individual with disabilities or for the elderly or any other specific group of users, but for the sake of users per se.

Globalization, economic growth, a general increase in consumer awareness and the proliferation of social media have all contributed to a more widespread understanding of the influence each one of us in reaity has on which products and services are offered to us. Consumer influence is no longer for the affluent only – it's for all. Which in turn means that design in the future – by default – no longer will be for the few but for all. Thus – important and valuable work currently being laid down by design for all communities throughout the world suddenly meets global support from the development of design practice itself, form the design discourse and from the adoption of design thinking by other communities like the business community. And from a rapidly changing culture evolving from autonomous communities on the internet, sharing ideas, creating together and challenging existing corporate cultures.

However, the role of the design for all communities is not in danger of becoming superfluous. It will merely change from focusing on the role of the designer to influencing the numerous new stake-holders in the value chains of the future, that they have the opportunity to make inclusiveness part of their own agendas. The designers already have, but very often faces barriers but up by their clients. If a million people – cross-section and without representing a specific interest group – ask a product or service supplier to integrate whatever feature or concern which might benefit people with special needs as well as their own, their voice will be much more audible than that of the designer. Thus – the time is now for the global design for all community to start using the potentially most powerful media of our times; the direct access to people who care about their fellow citizens and use them as carriers of the obvious idea that designs of the future may accommodate all of us with our individually different needs.

Doing this, it will not last by far as long as it otherwise would, before Design for All is the rule and not the exception.