Chapter 2 – Design Is a Service

It is no secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling.
~Paul Rand

In the previous chapter, I did my best to describe just how wonderful design can be. However, a critically important factor to remember is that design is not something in and of itself. Design is not art. Design is a service. It is a service to others.

Imagine testing two versions of a landing page that you created and discovering that the uglier design generates twenty times more sales than the visually appealing one. Every designer instinct you have will tell you to go with the more beautiful version. You may even be embarrassed that you’ll have to publish such an ugly version when the client chooses it.

Design Twitter will laugh at you. Dribbble will reward no likes . . . yet your sales will soar.

To gain a tremendous advantage over many designers in the industry and have your value soar, internalize an ethos with these statements:

• Design is a service.
• Design serves users.
• Design has to work.
• Design serves developers.
• Design gets results.
• Design serves businesses.

A truth in the industry is that many designers have forgotten that design is a service. In itself, it is not a product that you sell (that would be art) but an act of business meant to best serve a host of others’ interests. Whether it be marveling at clever design systems rather than monitoring the impact on business, or chasing virality on Twitter and Dribbble rather than doing the work to help their team succeed, there is a great opportunity to further your career by focusing on serving others rather than serving design itself. Why? Because your personal likes and dislikes are not what drives the client. True, your opinion is valuable as a professional, and your taste can guide a client to great outcomes through difficult decisions. But your ability to serve a client’s needs is more valuable than coercing them toward your opinion. Rise above your personal taste and simply be of service, following their lead and then guiding the reigns as they are handed to you.

You Serve Your Users

Your aim is to make users’ lives easier and deliver the businesses’ promises with ease rather than confusion. In service to helping your users achieve their goals, your design may get terribly distorted: buttons everywhere; nonintuitive user flows that power users’ demand; removal of beautiful, soft colors because they don’t comply with accessibility standards. It can feel maddening to comply. But if each decision is not fueled by requirements and the users’ ultimate utility, your efforts are not pointed at the true goal.

You serve the users to ensure that a desired experience is had and that their goals are achieved, above all else, no matter how it may reflect in your visual portfolio.

You Serve Your Developers

This is often the most misunderstood portion of being a designer, where it is often thought the developers are to build whatever the designer demands. Quite the contrary (for highly in-demand designers anyways). A true designer who serves will work with the developers, taking input into their designs so they can better accommodate the code. You might ask, “How can we change the UI I’ve designed to create more efficient code?” “How can we save the developer’s time?” Be prepared to help them exceed expectations so both of you win.

To serve your developers well is to think of them throughout your design process and how you can best enable them to succeed in building what’s needed for the business.

You Serve the Business

Grand discussions about “design systems best practices” can be fruitful, but if a client’s request needs to be shoehorned in for the next release to save the relationship, then that is the imperative.

A personal story:
While building a new feature for a significant and influential client, our boss demanded a certain terrible UI interaction. Though disgustingly nonintuitive, it mimicked how an existing system the client relied on worked, and the boss knew in their gut it would win us the contract and save the business.

I, the noble designer, made a valiant stand against such horrors and insisted we coach the client toward a more intuitive solution.

End result? I was kicked off the project, and the awful UI was built.

What was the outcome for this designer’s stand for better design? The boss’s intuition had been precisely correct, and the client adored how the ugly product worked. The business with this client boomed, and the product went on to make millions and millions of dollars for the company.

My intuition had been right, but it had also clouded the fact that I was not serving the business—and in some ways, the client. This one ugly UI wasn’t a decree that we must now always have awful designs; instead, it reiterated the fact that in order for everyone to get paychecks next month, we needed to band together and deliver the experience the business needed, whatever design flaws we feel are being executed.

What was needed was a designer who was not serving their personal ego or ideas but one who was serving their coworkers, their business, and—placing intuition on the backburner—the end client as well.

This is not to forgive shortsighted business decisions or poor management. It is also not to claim that designers should be quiet yes-people for anything suggested. However, in the end our business needs to succeed. So in service to it and to your fellow coworkers, sometimes compromise and understanding has to be deployed.

If you approach your design career from a place of humble service, you’ll be honoring the business and everyone within it you come across.

What happens when somebody receives a great service? They want to keep coming back and then tell their friends how they loved your work.

Design is a service.

What I’m Not Saying

• Be a yes-person and nod your head to everything.
• You are a non-thinking machine that will output what’s asked of it.
• Never bring up design theory or ideas.
• Design systems and theory have no merit.
• Your design opinion is not valuable.

What I Am Saying

• Approach everything from a place of service: to your clients, to your coworkers, to your business.
• Design is not art; it has to work and be serviceable.
• Think in the big picture when things are asked of you to see if you’re serving well.
• Appreciate that you’re part of a whole, and everyone needs to pull together.