Apropos of a continuing discussion between Nick and myself about the nature of design here at Blogless, it seems almost compulsory to mention Jess McMullin's Design Maturity Model.

Jess contends that both corporations and designers are at different levels of design maturity, ranging from No Conscious Design — where "design value isn't recognized" — to Framing, where "design redefines the challenges facing the organization." (Here's a PDF of the DMM, for your inspecting pleasure).

In kindly keeping with what we've already understood as part of a "natural" paradigm for modern design-thinker types, Style (making things look better) constitutes the second-to-lowest stage of design enlightenment, followed by Form and Function (making things work better), and finally followed by Problem Solving en route to abstract corporate-strategic planning as design-nirvana, the aforementioned Framing.

Even assuming the stability of Jess' five manifestations of design, (E.g.: Can we really say that most "style"-focused projects necessarily understand design as a "cosmetic afterthought"? Further, even if they do, don't products still need cosmetics?) there still seem to be some significant questions about the legitimacy (or, let's say the finality) of this arrangement.

To wit: First, why is one manifestation more valuable as a practice than the other (no explanations are offered), and second, why should any one manifestation be more valuable than the other?

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Reading Paul’s post from Wednesday, I was reminded how much work is performed by the word "design" and how many domains it crosses over. Poynor stakes a claim for greater emphasis on the visual in design, but as Paul wisely points out, a lopsided account of the discipline is unproductive.

Certainly, the way something looks is important, but this isn’t the only criteria for a design. John Maeda writes:

[I]n Japanese there is the word sekkei, which connotes designing a mechanism, system, or technology with rationalized metrics for quality. Dezain, on the other hand, goes beyond an object’s function to how it makes us feel.

This seems to be the right idea. However, such a definition places no limitations on how sekkei or dezain are accomplished or in what proportion. Something that works well can make us feel good; it doesn’t necessarily have to look good. Similarly, as Donald Norman points out, something that looks good can make us think it works well. Both might be considered good designs by their users.

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