We say attention to detail. We don’t say attention to big-picture.
It appears I found a nerve to strike when I thumbed out a banal tweet while standing in line at the cafeteria:
We say “attention to detail” and “pixel perfect” in design job postings. But I rarely see “attention to big picture” and “end-to-end aware.”
100+ retweets and 200+ ❤️. Pretty good for a tweet in my world. That nerve was struck, and no one who bothered to tweet had any sort of counterpoint or correction.
This was unexpected and easily my most favorited and re-tweeted tweet. After seeing this, I knew I had to take to the keyboard and elaborate and cash-in on that sweet social media juice. Let’s see what some of the stronger reply tweets back to me looked like. 😮
How many angels can dance on the head of a pixel?
Think about it. The pixel is literally the smallest unit of digital design. A retina display pixel is nearly .0038 inches. Around 90 microns. Less than the width of a human hair. Nearly 46,000 pixels per square inch. A staggeringly small unit and equally staggering large volume.
90 microns. 3.8 hundredths of an inch. Barely one angel can dance on it.
If the angels 👼🏻 are dancing on the pixel, they do so to tamp down the devils 😈 in the details.
This is the level that many are being asked to operate at. Craft what is seen and touched on a tangible, visceral level. It becomes the manifestation of a vision that can be seen and experienced. There’s nothing wrong with this, it is when it becomes the sole role of design to operate at this level that the designer is marginalized. Marginalized into a into a 90 square micron box.
It brings up the question of: where are designers supposed to operate?
The Fetishization
This tweet was just an offhand quip. A remark at the water-cooler. I think—I don’t quite remember—that something triggered the idea. Or maybe it’s just my zealotry about service design that has me always thinking altitude and levels of zoom. Designing strategies and frameworks from an altitude that is heads-up, not quite heads-down.
As luck would have it, I’ve been wanting to reply to this article for quite a while: The Dribbblisation of Design. I even have a draft of an article written up called “The Fetishization of UX” that I’ve never gone back to.
The tweet was probably my subconscious response to the overall topic that is on the two-sides of the sameUX and service design coin. Design has such a strong focus, and grip, on the detail and pixel perfection that it’s hard to find where the designers are who float at a higher altitude looking at the satellite imagery from 10,000 feet up, not 1 foot.
Let’s be clear—attention to detail and pixel consciousness are important
There’s nothing wrong with pixel perfection and attention to detail, and there’s nothing wrong with the 1-foot altitude view. This is where science takes place, with many of the best things occurring through the lens of the microscope 🔬.
These levels of design are important and essential parts of the overall design strategy. End-to-end and surface-to-core doesn’t leave anything out. Where design gets high-centered is when this is the focus of design is only at the 1-foot, 10-foot, or maybe 100-foot view, and the people designing for experience isn’t operating at the 10,000 foot altitude.
To move forward with how we produce and steward experiences, we have to treat the big picture itself as something that can be the focus of design.
Big picture is all about altitude
This isn’t an issue of seniority. Management and leadership do look at big-picture strategies and overall design; but they’re not individual contributors and don’t necessarily call themselves designers. They’re managers, directors, vice-presidents. They have to make sure the working ranch keeps working, which means keep the organization shipping whatever it creates.
However, among those like me in the meatier, middle part of the strata, it’s more rare to find a individual contributor that is tasked with working at that 10,000 view.
Paradoxically, if you think about this, it does make some sense why design on an individual contributor level wouldn’t be involved at this altitude. Why would a designer be a part of the 10,000 foot crew, which typically is the airspace of management, owners, and other strategic stakeholders. Should a bricklayer be a part of the team that plans out the entire architecture of the castle, or should they be focused on setting the best mortar and brick possible?
Should a bricklayer be a part of the team that plans out the entire architecture of the castle?
Well—maybe?
Or better, should a bricklayer be plucked from their space with the trowel and mortar and put into the hot air balloon where they can use their experience and expertise at a new altitude, leave the brick behind for the view of the whole castle.
Because it is a fact that can’t be argued or denied: you can’t see the whole castle while you’re placing the individual bricks.
So why is it like this? Why should I care?
Design has really come into its own, with the help of Apple re-energizing industrial design and interface design, and the idea of “good design” is a household concept (even if it still refers mainly to look and feel).
Designers, in the sense of the individual contributors, have been cranking out wireframes and mockups and assets for so long, that momentum is what carried us forward through the design dark-ages of the early 2000’s Web 2.0 and into the current era of truly beautiful design.
We live in an era where look and feel, and function, is light years beyond where it was just 10, 15, 20 years ago. We can’t say that for other forms of creative production.
Digital design, user experience, has shot up so fast, it’s still trying to find its adult voice. One could argue that it’s full grown, but hasn’t been sitting at the adult Thanksgiving table long enough to know how to handle its wine, being only accustomed to sippy cups and those trays with sections for the different foods at the kid’s table.
The problem is the reputation of “what design is” has stuck longer than it should. Design reaches out to be a part of strategic vision and planning, but those who already are at that table don’t quite know what to do with it. And to be honest, a lot of the time I don’t think design does either.
But… if our reach doesn’t exceed our grasp, what’s heaven for? We’re going to need a bigger balloon.
I want YOU in that balloon
The logo for Practical Service Design is a hot air balloon, originating from this blog post about taking a higher altitude view of your business silos so you can see everything going on at once, and make decisions based on that big picture:
This isn’t a pitch for service design as the panacea for strategic design. Quite the opposite. Service design struggles to find its place among design and leadership as well. In fact, sometimes I wonder if it’s even a real role, or if it is more of a toolkit to help you heat up your air to get your balloon up to that altitude. Wait — did I just say that service design is just a bunch of hot air? Whoop 😮.
Regardless! This is a call to action to designers to not only focus “heads down” on the pixel, but also take time to go “heads up” and see their role in the big picture, and hopefully contribute to the direction and overall vision and strategy of that big picture. Not every designer is going to be interested, or capable, of this.
The notion still exists; there’s a place for design up there, surveying the ground below, sketching out and planning the attention to detail across many places all at once, not just the up-close 🔬 view.
So the next time you see a job posting or someone over-emphasizing the designer’s responsibility for attention to detail and pixel perfection, remember, there’s a whole lot of airspace above us. From time to time, maybe float up and take a look down. What you see, maybe for the first time, might surprise you.
But before you go…
You should give this article a 💚, follow me Erik Flowers on Medium (and on Twitter — @erik_flowers) and even tweet 🐦 this article!
