Customization trends: the designers’ side
Posted by: Fidji SIMO in Innovation, Internet/Technology
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about the fact that, with customization trends, everybody will soon need to develop design skills to make the most of user generated products. In my vision, designers were really powerful because they have the required skills to benefit completely from this new trend. But recently I read another article of Etienne Mineur (in French, but I will explain it here), which basically says that designers are becoming less and less powerful, especially since new templates and applications allows amateurs to control design without having design skills.
I think that what I said remains true: users have more options to customize things but the power stays between the hands of designers who have the skills to offer this choice. Without design skills, users just have more options to choose when they buy a product: when Freddy&Ma proposes to “design your own bag”, it just offers you some different options on the same bag (the one I customized on the picture is nice, right? ;-)) but not the real possibility of designing the bag of your dreams. But what I misunderstood is the fact that even if designers are more than required to create those templates, they can feel that they are loosing some power because they don’t have any control on the final product anymore. I recently read some management theories telling that the most important motivational factor was the feeling of being responsible for a whole project (which is why motivation was so low during Taylorism). So I can now understand designers’ feeling, at a time when they are becoming more “facilitators” than “makers”.
I don’t really know anything about design, but the most obvious solution would be that designers migrate towards services, by proposing their advice to project managers who want to have a total control on the final cut. But when it comes to mass market, they should follow the wave by proposing the best solutions for users to customize their products. In that scenario, users wouldn’t even feel the need of developing design skills on their own because they would have all the choice they need, and designers would keep the benefit of their technical skills.
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It would definitely depend on the complexity of the product. Check out the boing boing-store. I love that they make me feel like a designer and it feels like I control the whole thing. http://www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=3533
Yes Vince, that’s exactly what I say: on the boing boing store, you don’t design anything by yourself, but you choose between different (and multiple) options or templates. But with so many options, it manages to give you the impression that you are “designing” the product. This is why (and because users’ wish to adopt a customized consumption mode can’t be stopped) designers must follow the wave by proposing more and more customization tools so that users won’t feel the need to develop design skills by themselves.
I’m not sure if the issue is that users will become designers themselves, rather it’s an effort to stay competitive in a market where customisation is an advantage. Whether a person becomes a designer or not, is completely dependant on how they perceive the need and how skilled they perceive themselves to meet it. You definitely don’t want to alienate the skilled designers, as those can become a valued asset to your business in the future. So really, the challenge is appeal to both types of customers, the mass-kind and the special kind, which adds value to you. Good book on that: The Tipping Point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point_(book) ).
And there are business-model considerations, which very much depend on the kind of industry and how it is structured. Sometimes you need to stand on top of the value chain, sometimes, you need to need customers stand on top of it, and grab a smaller piece of a much bigger pie. I foresee that much of the design-world is moving into that direction.