In today’s fast-changing business environment, designers face an increasingly evident problem: the singularity of design. To reduce costs, companies often replicate the successful design patterns of others, leading to homogenized designs that lack creativity and diversity. This article explores the issue of design singularity and proposes solutions centered on Diversity and Plurality to create a world full of creative possibilities.
The Problem of Design Singularity
Currently, the design industry is facing severe homogenization. This issue mainly manifests in the following aspects:
1. Cost-Driven Replication
Companies, in a bid to cut costs, often replicate the design patterns of successful businesses rather than exploring new ideas. While this approach can reduce costs in the short term, it results in homogenized products that lack innovation and competitiveness in the long run.
2. Standardization of Design Processes
The design process has become highly standardized, with designers required to follow fixed steps and procedures, limiting their creative potential. Consequently, 80% of designers produce similar-looking products, making designs dull and monotonous.
3. Bias in Existing Design Patterns
Most existing design patterns are based on the logic of people in developed countries, overlooking the needs of marginalized groups. Driven by commercial interests, companies focus more on consumer groups that bring the most profit, paying little attention to those who cannot directly generate profit, thus neglecting their rights.
Solutions: From Diversity to Plurality
To solve the problem of design singularity, we need not only Diversity but also Plurality. Diversity is a passive concept emphasizing acceptance and inclusion of differences, whereas Plurality is an active concept that acknowledges and promotes multiple possibilities.
1. Diversity vs. Plurality
Diversity refers to accepting and including different individuals and perspectives, while Plurality goes further by actively promoting and creating multiple possibilities. This means we should not only accommodate differences but also actively seek and explore various design ideas and solutions.
2. Acknowledging Individual Differences
Everyone is different, and even the same individual has different needs at different stages of life. We need to recognize these differences and design appropriate solutions for each stage, rather than using one solution to satisfy everyone.
3. Embracing Possibilities
No single solution should dominate the world. It is essential to embrace and open up various possibilities, promoting diverse design thinking and creativity, making design more interesting and meaningful.
Conclusion
The multiverse of designers should be a world that embraces Diversity and Plurality, where everyone’s different needs are valued and met. Design should no longer be singular but a field full of creativity and possibilities. By promoting diverse design education, establishing diverse evaluation standards, raising social awareness of diverse design, and supporting the design needs of marginalized groups, we can achieve this goal together, making design more exciting and meaningful.
We do not need another user experience like Facebook, Twitter, Google, or YouTube.
