Page 81 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

2. “Pixel Perfect”: Designers as Craftsmen 69
by Accenture in 2013, the material practices of designers changed. Even though this acquisition was not the only reason why the work of designers changed - and for example broader trends like technology and business interest also had impact - the designers talked about the acquisition as a major event that marked the transition in work practices. In particular, the designers explained that they extended their work from merely designing tangibles like “screens” to designing intangibles like “stories”. These “stories” were often visualized in PowerPoint presentations and shared with clients during collaborative workshops. The aim of developing “stories” was to help their clients change their mindset, from business or technology-driven thinking to human-centered thinking. Hence, differ- ently than before, the key audience associated with the work of designers was not only the ‘users’ who will use the service the designers developed, but also the ‘clients’ who need to change their mindset.
In this paper, we explore what these changes in material practices entail for the designers. How do they cope with the renewed situation in which they do not develop “screens” for users but “stories” for clients? At hindsight, one might think that there is no longer any need for designers to spend most of their time behind their desk, perfecting their technical designs on their computer screens. Instead, it can be expected that, as the strategic director of Fjord said, designers need “to get up from their desks” and talk with clients and others related to the service they design. While this is partly true, and designers indeed increasingly worked outside the design studio and interacted more with their audiences, what was particu- larly striking to us was that the designers continued to work behind their screens and expanded their former material practices with making phys- ical artifacts.
To start with, we saw that the designers continued former material practices. In particular, the designers still used similar design tools, such as the popular tools of the Customer journey (a design tool used to display a customer experience chronologically) or the Service Blueprint (a design tool used to visualize each aspect of a service from diverse user perspec- tives), now serving different purposes. Before, the designers used their design tools for their own purposes. For example, using the customer journey helped the designers to develop a sensitivity for the needs of the clients’ customers which they, in turn, needed to develop innovative “screens”. Now, as a designer explained below, the designers still use their former tools but instead they use them more as “tools for storytelling”:
“The outcome is less concrete. It is more about the transforming the clients and hoping that succeeds. The Customer Journey and the Service Blueprint