Design is everyone’s responsibility. Designers may be the practitioners that give an idea it’s first expression, but a well designed product is forged by many critical eyes. A good design culture finds a way to give a voice to everyone—as a critic, a proponent, or a practitioner. It’s our job to build cultures of:

  • Critique
    A culture of critique is one where people can recognize when something feels wrong. They may not have the words to express what it is, but they are able to raise a flag when there is a concern. It’s the first step to becoming sensitive to design.

  • Rhetoric
    A design rhetoric culture is one in which people can not only identify that something is wrong, but can articulate what it is. It’s one where people have a shared vocabulary to describe what’s wrong and value the benefit that design might bring to the process.

  • Literacy
    In a design literate culture individuals have the skills and tools to design solutions. It’s a culture where people know how to use the design process to uncover problems, and the expressiveness to convey their solutions.