with design training were extremely rare and typically had to do their Ph.D.s in other disciplines.

INTERIM EVENTS (1984–2014)

The shift from seeing people as consumers and customers to seeing them as users began with the advent of PCs that were difficult to use.

Microsoft was a pioneer, with a team of four people doing usability engineering in 1988 [ 1]. Usability testing grew rapidly once PCs and Macintoshes became available to everyone who could afford them.

The cognitive needs of the user, in addition to the previous concern with ergonomics, became major concerns in the 1990s.

The ongoing integration of design research into design practice moved fastest in industrial design and user interface design, where it was practiced according to a user-centered research approach. With the user-centered approach, designers still designed for people, but their perspective on people enlarged from seeing them as customers and consumers to seeing them as users of products and interfaces.

In the user-centered design process, we focused on the thing being designed (e.g., the object, communication, space, interface, etc.), looking for ways to ensure that it met the needs of the user. In user-centered design, the roles of the researcher and the designer were distinct yet interdependent. The user was not really a part of the team, but was spoken for by the researcher.

An ongoing battle was being played
out in the early 1990s between the
user-centered design researchers
and the market researchers. User
researchers focused on helping
the design team to make products,
communication, and spaces that were
useful, usable, and desirable. Market
researchers focused on the delivery
and sales end of the process. Their
goals were complementary, but the
different groups were often competing
for the limited funds available for
research.
Over time, design research
activities slowly moved to the front
end of the design development
process, where designers and design
researchers were getting involved with
challenges at larger and larger levels
of scale. The challenges ranged from
automating ticket sales to enhancing
the experiences of passengers waiting
at airports to the orchestration of
collaboration in healthcare services to
attacking societal issues like obesity.
The means—originally the object
of design—became the second step
in the designers’ work. Interest in
design research grew as the challenges
became more and more demanding,
particularly at the front end of the
process. Soon designers and design
researchers were being called upon
to get involved in exploring what to
design, not only how to design it.
Many new methods and tools for
design research were developed,
particularly from 1999 on. A number
of books that organize and describe
large collections of design and design
research methods and tools began
appearing.

2014: A SLICE IN TIME

We won’t start this slice with a list of
historical events, because we all live it
today, but let’s just do a comparison:
• Smartphones, social media, and
other forms of connectivity have
spread through our lives.

• Digital means, increasingly “the cloud,” have almost eradicated regular mail for the purposes of transferring information.

• Global problems of demographics,
• New technologies no longer
originate only in the Western world;
Asian countries and companies have
integrated as active players in the
innovation-sphere.

Not only have our methods of working changed, but the mindset in 2014 has also shifted toward that of designing with people. We see this for both the long-term challenges that address societal issues and the short-term challenges of the marketplace. Design and design research are now more integrated, especially in the newer domains of practice such as systems, service, and social design.

How do we work today? We live in two worlds: One is real and the other virtual. These worlds are tightly coupled for many people. Small, fast, and mobile devices keep us connected to each other in real time. The Internet is available to anyone with a wireless device. Many people sleep next to their smartphones, and young people have altogether abandoned landline phones and wristwatches. Children as young as three or four can use the new devices without much explanation.

We work in teams both real and virtual, and we can collaborate anytime and anywhere through our connected devices. We have many different ways of communicating with the others on our teams, including face-to-face meetings, emailing, Skype and other video chat services, Twitter, Facebook, the phone (including conference calls), and so on. We can collaborate in real time at different locations using shared documents. We are able to participate in just about anything that catches our attention at levels of scale not previously imaginable, thanks in part to the prevalence of social networks. At the same time, enthusiastic and uncritical application of new technology over the past 30 years is now recognized as having created new problems and left others unsolved. But we continue to let new technology push innovation and drive design.

Innovation no longer comes from just market pull (what people ask for) or technology push (what is invented), but also from a contextual push [ 2],

The means—originally the object
of design—became the second step
in the designers’ work. Soon designers
and design researchers were being
called upon to get involved in exploring
what to design, not only how to design it.

COVER STORY