Design is fascinating. It concerns every aspect of our lives and can change the artefacts we interact with and the societies and cultures we live and work in. We believe design creates the most outstanding value when it successfully composes a problem through the lens of the user, and the designers realize it.
Walter Tan discusses that the designer's role overall is changing – we play the role of problem solvers to the world's issues. Designers need to think a lot about the relationship between technology and people's needs. This situation challenges to explore areas outside of our comfort zones; exploring marketing, get connected with people, fighting the pandemic while understanding people's needs and behaviours that changes overnight. This situation is an enthralling time for us designers, but it demands us to have a curious mind to solve people's problems and work for the virtue of generations to come.
To become a great designer said Bostami, one should increasingly engage with society, the environment, and even getting involved with political directions and agendas as these factors affect businesses. Now that we have a world pandemic around us, we can see how designers thrive during this difficult time. It depends on how the designers put themselves in the society and blend in with their businesses to succeed; some see themselves as designers that offer help to the public, social scientists, anthropologists, or even community activists - but as designers, we want to help. Because as designers, we realise that we can apply our innovative process and transferable skills to almost anything.
From the perspective of Irfendy, previously, a design used to be about making a product and proceed to a new one or 'walk away'. Today's product development demands designers to be more flexible and reflect this through emergent, fluid processes where solutions constantly evolve. Designers are looking at opportunities, anywhere, and then using their expertise in the design-solution process to come out with alternative answers. Surprisingly, with creativity and determination involved, the alternate solutions to the issues appear outside the normal realm of 'design' and don't involve traditional design output. Designers of today are facilitating processes by being central to the problems. This situation suits the purpose of design, where the designers bridge the communication between users and their problems by bringing ideas up or ideas down.
