Designers as Everyday Problem Solvers
Whenever I am asked why I chose to become a designer, I would always respond with my zeal of solving problems. However, I often get eyebrow raises as people could not connect being a creative with being able to solve problems.
People often associate the word “problem-solvers” with those who hold technical jobs such as engineers or pretty much anyone who works in the STEM industry. However, the little conveniences in our everyday lives that subconsciously slip our minds are often enabled by a group of designers or creatives.
An example would be the signages that we see and utilise everyday. These signages are fragments of wayfinding design where as quoted by Paul Symonds, is the “cognitive, social and corporeal process and experience of locating, following or discovering a route through and to a given space”. Wayfinding takes place almost exclusively in social environments with, around and past other people and are also affected by parties who direct and administer the routes through which we try to find our way.
These parties are usually the designers and creatives as they exercise wayfinding aids such as colour-coding and signage clustering — used to layout information into a hierarchy and prevent the issue of information overload for users. These signages are everywhere in our direct environment, as close as when we leave our house as the unit number is a part of wayfinding design as well.
In this case, designers come in to set order in our immediate environment so everyone is able to get on with their day and get to where they have to be with ease. A creative example would be THERE Studio’s wayfinding design for Funan mall in Singapore where they injected colours and typography to spruce the mall with fun geometric signages.
Designers also play a huge role in one’s simple act of daily consumption. This example takes the form of prescription bottle design. There have been many cases of people taking the wrong prescription and either having allergic reactions or a much worse reaction to the medicine as they were not able to distinguish the text carefully.
Oftentimes, people find it difficult to read the small texts that are on similar-looking prescription bottles and the elderlies are especially more prone to having this problem. Deborah Adler came up with the Clear Rx Medication System for Target Pharmacy where she had colour-coded rings for different members of the family as well as easy-to-read labels that had been designed with her grandparents in mind. Although it is a simple change, Deborah’s design could possibly save lives in the future as people take their prescriptions correctly with clearer labelling and legible texts.
Applying design thinking principles of merging state-of-art technology with the archaic and fundamental act of enjoying a meal, the designers at Grab Food, or any food delivery platforms definitely solve our everyday problem of being hungry and ultimately lazy. The designers that are behind these platforms have put together an ecosystem where they would be able to host food vendors, delivery riders and users all on the same platform.
This solves many problems at once such as having the need to cook, having no time to leave, travel home and purchasing a meal as well as being able to purchase from multiple vendors. This created many jobs for locals as they are able to sign-up to be delivery riders hence solving their problem of having the need to find a job. In addition, food vendors are also able to advertise their shop and have their food delivered through the platform without having to fork out a large sum of money for their own marketing and delivery service.
As such, designers are considered part of “problem-solving” job roles as they develop and execute design solutions that are applicable in many aspects of our lives. Be it consciously or subconsciously, designers exist to make people’s lives easier. This could be as simple as signboards we see around us, treatment of colours and texts on packaging, a convenience mobile application and many more digital, physical and hybrid solutions.
