Design accountability

Many design customers, some 22.5 million small business owners, are primarily driven by cost and do not necessarily see a huge difference in the levels of design sophistication offered by established professionals and design newbies. This environment has created fertile ground for the establishment of design companies like crowdspring who compete on cost and work off of a “spec” model. Detractors of these services point out that they devalue the design profession, and that they are not in line with professional design standards. But ultimately, most customers care little about designs professional standards and will engage with whoever offers the best value-to-cost ratio.

Instead of railing against firms like crowdspring, designers need to ask, “how do clients value design?” The subjectivity of design is as much an issue in this discussion as anything. The ideas of “good” and “bad” design are only meaningful if there is a understood criteria that they are judged against. If Bob’s book sells a million copies, was the cover good, or bad?

If the design profession would spend more time thinking about quantifying the value of their work, instead of focusing on the beauty pageant, we would not be having this conversation. It all boils down to one word – accountability. Doctors, plumbers, and Air-traffic controllers have it. But the design profession does not. And because they don’t, they are vulnerable to a market that values their service based on subjective criteria.

*This post was inspired by the On the Media story about crowdsourcing of design. Read the On the Media transcript at : http://bit.ly/aGRbAJ