What’s the “Why”?
I have spent the last decade or so as a designer, making publications, websites and the occasional app. Before that, I spent a few years as an academic/researcher in the art/heritage world, looking into histories and archives, excited about the possible new discoveries, new learning and teaching opportunities. Before that, I worked in some pretty fancy shops, catering to the unnecessary needs of the well-heeled.
Along the way, there has been a central tenant to these jobs and roles, WHY?
- Why is this interesting?
- Why do you want this?
- Why do you think this is filling a need?
- Why do I want to buy this?
- Why are people into this?
- Why can’t you see the relevance of this?
- Why won’t you value this?
- Why, Why…WHY?
This is central to what I want to do after this master’s programme. I’m interested in the why, and now comfortable enough to say, “I don’t know, help me understand.”
This curious mindset is vital to the field of UX. And it is something I have practiced my whole life. Yeah, I was that annoying kid that constantly asked why, to the point that mum would say “Just cos.” Just cos has never satisfied me as an answer, I’d go to the library and discover what I could about a topic that interested me. Now I just go online.
Now, I don’t understand why people even ask questions. Or worse, post before discovering if there’s any truth to the shit they post!
Is everything a product?
My early days were spent in shops, so I had to discover the “why” of the things I was selling. I had to find the value so I could convince someone else to spend their money with me, not some other store down the road.
I researched. I looked into the sales catalogues, found points that interested me and used them to sell from. I found the unique position of each and every thing in the store, and saw myself as a match-maker, uniting someone with a thing that made them happy, or somehow reflected their value. It didn’t matter if it was clothing or homewares, they both ‘said/did’ the same thing…reflected the individuals perceived worth in the world.
My point of view was slightly different in academia. I was in a discipline full of an entitled, wealthy perspective, and I spoke form a position of something else. Something more common. Art histories are (until the late 20th century) are histories of the elite. Museums and other displaying houses are reflections of what the ‘social betters’ thought should be common knowledge (think of the cast Greek and Roman busts that filled museums back in the day), so aside from being educative, they were also (in the case of NZ) a fairly colonial project.
But all these things were products all the same. They were there to sell an idea, or a notion…be it good or bad.
I fell into design, moving to a country that didn’t understand my unique world view, thus removing me from the cultural space. Perhaps it was my own insecurities that stopped me following my studies there, but that’s by-the-by now.
Designing had always been second nature to me. I was an art school dropout after all. I’d loved formatting things, and getting them to look ‘just right’, so it was pretty easy to move into the design space (I simplify this journey too much. I’d made a website for a shop I worked in in the late 90s, and always had adobe products, whipping visual things up for others).
I quickly went from changing buttons on a website to formatting all the documents, and managing the entire look and feel for the place. It was fun. And it was always about the product.
So yes, EVERYTHING IS A PRODUCT.
Some products make money, some products sell an idea. Some products make you feel ok about your place in the world, and some challenge it.
Everything is a product. What depends is the WHY. Why is it a product? Who is the market? Just because you have made something, doesn’t mean someone else wants it. How do they even know it exists?
Product Design or Research?
The last 3 months I’ve been in 2 worlds as part of the Masters.
One world has been all about a digital product. The other has been about research (almost exclusively).
I’ve learnt a lot about myself on this part of the journey. Most importantly, I think I understand my WHY.
To be honest, I’m ho-hum about designing things. I feel there are new designers coming out every day that have bold new ideas, and these make me feel a little stale.
I also feel the digital space has become so standardised, that using a design system, like material.io, simply makes the visual design of a product utterly standardised. It’s they why behind the design that matters.
And that centralises research, right?
Maybe. Research is a huge stage that has so many blocks built on it. A crazy number of blocks. Like many things in life, it depends. It depends on what the goal of the stage or the design is. It depends on who you ask. It depends on what questions you ask. It depends on how open you are to discover new information. It truly depends.
But this is the space I want to be in from now on. I’m somewhat over making things. I can, but I’d rather give the making to someone else who cares more about such things. Of course, I care for the look of a product, and deeply care about its functionality.
But mostly, I care for the why which informs the HOW.
Jeremiah Boniface 