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This post is the first in our blog series “How to Build a Successful Design Team”. In this series, we explore different aspects of the most successful design teams and how you can implement new design processes and strategies within your own organization.

To even the most junior designer, the process of design is so ingrained, it seems boiled down to a simple set of common sense steps that have always existed. But design process had to have been “invented” at some point, by someone, right? Though there’s no one person credited for shaping the guideposts of every design project, Tristam Sparks, Researcher & Lecturer in Experience Design at the Massey University College of Creative Arts at the University of New Zealand, and Dianna Miller, Professor of Practice, Industrial and Interaction Design at the School of Design at Syracuse University do a great job of breaking down the historical evolution of how the principles of design became a defined process.

Tristam conjectures that “‘Principles’ evolved as the process of ‘designing’ (whether it be architectural, engineering or information-centric) became a task.” He suggests that “most designers are still using principles established by Modernism. Therefore, the easy answer would be that most designers are following ‘principles’ established by the Bauhaus and continued by post-war designers in the United States and Europe.” Dianne jumps in to elaborate on how design thinking has progressed since then, crediting the influence of John Chris Jones’ “Design Methods,” which Jones started developing in the mid-1950s. Dianna says, “It’s a philosophy and suggestion of practices and process that most industrial designers and interaction designers today will recognize. Some of his ideas include: designing holistically for processes and systems, understanding user behaviors and needs, and inclusion of participatory design in the process.”

So while it seems the general principles have remained the same since they combined to form design process, the way designers approach them today has changed drastically because of technology and new developments and preferences in work and office culture.

How Technology Has Shaped Design Process

Most designers would agree the design process should follow these six steps:

1. Define the Problem
2. Research
3. Brainstorm and Dissect Ideas
4. Build Solutions
5. Gather Feedback
6. Iterate

The way designers approach defining the problem has remained mostly untouched by technology, but each of the other five steps is a prime example of how we’ve moved from pen and paper to computers and programs. Research is carried out almost exclusively on computers, brainstorming often happens with the aid of design collaboration software and design collaboration tools, solutions are almost always built digitally, and tools like Wake facilitate feedback.

The design team at Instrument says today, the needs of their clients vary so much, the team is somewhat “anti-process.” They rely on flexibility, fluidity, and experience to come up with solutions. JD Hooge, Partner and Chief Creative Officer says, “Everything we do is so different — every client we take on, every challenge we have is really unique, so there’s no formula that’s going to work for everyone, and we don’t try to tell our clients that ‘this is our process.’ The team, process, and deliverables are totally based on what needs to be done in that particular case.”

How Modern Work Culture Has Affected Design Process

The team at Stripe says even in the span of a year, their design process has changed, shaped by more designers collaborating through various design team software to tackle bigger problems. Ludwig Pettersson, former Creative Director, offers an example of how they’ve had to re-design their design process management, “Say you’re two designers working together. You’re talking constantly, right? Sending things back and forth. If you’re three designers, everyone starts sharing within the group. Four five six, not everyone is talking to everyone. We’ve tried to add a very little amount of process to make sure that everyone gets to share their work, everyone gets to prompt others for feedback, and to make sure that all the things that naturally happen when you’re smaller continue to happen as the team grows.”

As design teams continue to explore new ways to reshape design process for a modern world, challenges will arise as we examined in our post Why your design process is failing you. On a positive note, the design community is somewhat unique in its community-driven, collaborative attitude, and teams are usually eager to share what worked for them, and what they learned, as a means to help others. Chen Ye, a student studying product design, development, and biology at Brown (and current SpaceX design intern) has a nice roundup of companies who’ve shared their design process through case studies, interviews, screenshots, and anecdotal stories.

It’s not just the process of design that has and will continue to evolve as technology and humans change. Other posts in this series will examine how design collaboration and design review are transforming.

Ready to streamline your design process today? Check out Wake, the leading design collaboration platform aimed to improve your design process and team.