I’ve given a couple of interviews lately and one of the things I get asked quite often is what lead me to “become a designer”. The answer is usually “I’ve never really felt like one”. In fact, during the last couple of months (in California and now back here in Portugal) I realized what I really consider myself, and it’s not a designer at all. Let me explain:

Background

I don’t have a fine arts or design background. I have a computer science background, and (most people don’t know this) a music school background too. As such, I’ve been programming since I was 7, but my aesthetic eye only started developing when I was 14. Now, some people say you have to be born with some sort of taste for it - which I admit is partially true (I was always pushed around by teachers to study architecture - never did).

Now, the kind of work I do (apart from some minor exceptions) always ends up falling under the same area: either it’s creating a user-centric website or webapp, or helping established brands polish their web-approach by guiding them in best practices. Or I do the whole product bottom to top (development and design), but that doesn’t happen frequently because of time constraints. Anyway, all of this falls into one thing: the boundary between information and design.

Information, Design or Information design?

For me there’s a tight connection between a designer and an information architect. A good designer always thinks a little bit as both, usually working up towards a better product because he carefully considers how users view the end result.

The good thing is that companies are growing aware of the difference it makes to have a properly considered UI instead of a eye-candy based, ajax-dripping website that hits the ranks at Stylegala. The bad thing is that there’s not enough designers out there with engineering and management skills.

So where am I going, really?

New web applications require much more than a good developer and a fancy designer. They rely on high amounts of information, and need people with the proper skills to think outside the box and make sense of it in a (obviously) pleasing way.

The designer should never be just a designer - because if you’re just a designer, you’ll be doing splash pages and hip teasers all your life (which is fine for some people, not fine for me at all). Think outside the box and change your way of thinking. If you’re a designer, or if you’re hiring a designer for your next super web hit.