Design has the power to
make sense of a complex world.

There will be all manner of practical skills that we are going to need to pick up. We’re going to need choreographers soon, people who have real kinetic experience because we going to be talking more and more about environments that are full of input devices and how you engage with these in ways that makes sense to humans. Haptics are becoming more and more important and acoustic design is becoming more and more important. In terms of what we’re able to engage with and what we’re not able to engage with – that depends on the skills we are going to have to learn.

I think the question is not what can designers do, and what can they not do. I think the role of design is increasingly is not about what about comes out at the end but the journey. The role of design is facilitation and translation between different worlds, between different walks of life, between completely abstract and arcane concepts and normal human beings. That’s what great design does – it takes something completely intangible, or bewildering and facilitates engagement or translates it into something that is accessible. That’s what design is more and more.

I think what makes a designer special, is not “can he draw or can he do wireframes?” It’s a mindset, a set of methods that you use. If not about the profession, it’s about bringing the professions together and enabling them to work together. For me, everybody can be a good designer – you just need to learn the tools and embrace user–centric thinking.