Designer's Identity: Personal Attributes And Design Skills

What I read

In this article, authors Kunrath, Cash and Li-Ying describe the output of a literature review focused on the qualities of a designer’s identity; this output is captured and represented in a new model that can be used by future researchers.

The authors start by identifying the core focus and questions of the research, which include “‘Who are these professionals called designers?’, ‘How do they develop their professional identity?’ and ‘What is expected of them?’”. They explain that knowing the answers to these questions will help frame an understanding of a designer’s identity, which will then help us understand and manage design behavior in the context of design occurring. While there has been research into the idea of a designer’s identity in various other papers, it has not been formed into a single framework for understanding, and existing research ignores the embedded context in which design occurs.

Next, the authors explain their methodology, a literature review of the journal Design Studies. Prior to conducting the research, various words were selected to use as search terms within the Design Studies journal. The identified texts were reduced to 21, which were then examined and coded, with number of citations related to a given attribute being established as a core indicator to be used in the resulting analysis.

The authors then describe the results of their investigation, first in the way it contributes to an understanding of a Designer’s identity. This identity is embedded in a sociocultural context, includes the development of expertise and skills, and also “professional ways of being.” The authors describe that “work is usually done for the sake of identity-building, such as gaining advancement and recognition that validate the self.”

Next, the authors connect the output of their research to established personality trait models (HEXACO and BIG FIVE.) This was then used as a starting point for the creation of their model. While it could be expected that design attributes map to all of the personality traits, the authors’ findings indicate that “emotion”, “self-confidence”, and “conscientiousness” are poorly mapped. Additionally, ethics and virtues are not commonly referenced. Managerial qualities are referenced more frequently, as are social abilities, leadership, and confidence. The authors conclude that “All the identified attributes are relevant although not all have been widely studied in design.”

After exploring the attributes of a designer’s identity, the authors then explore the skills and competencies used. They use a framework of Cognitive Skills, Communication Skills, Technical Skills and Management Skills, and again map the number of reference to these ideas as found in the articles. Each of these categories is then explained in more detail, showing how specific articles lead to, and then map to, subcategories. The authors find that all of the elements are relevant, and that there is a lack of a framework showing this.

In the next section, the authors show their core contribution based on this research: the establishment of a professional identity framework. This shows that professional designers must be “considered holistically and with respect to the different aspects of their required job, and the wider context.” They show that design skills evolve substantially over time, as does expertise development; this is a “non-linear development.” They introduce a DPI framework, first showing elements of personal attributes and then showing categories of design skills. A brief discussion of each adds detail about how time plays a role in the model.

The authors recognize some of the limitations of the study and the framework. First, they describe that the review did not capture every work published, but they feel it is “sufficiently comprehensive to provide a strong overview of this subject in design field.” Keywords may have been missed; and, the authors describe that while the initial methodology focused on a review of Design Studies, “additional journals were added to the systematic review in order to extend the scope of the work and improve the framework proposed here.” Finally, the authors indicate that a limitation of the paper is the use of only a brief discussion.

Finally, the authors conclude the paper by describing the implications of the work. They indicate the value of their framework, and describe that no prior works exist that bring all of the elements they found into an individual model. The model can be used to “stimulate developments in: Professional aspects through the understanding of designers’ characteristics; Cohesion and structure of the profession itself; Job market for designers through the balance of profile characteristics and expectations; and in educational aspects through better adapting curriculum and methods for teaching and learning.

What I learned and what I think

I’ll first reflect on the data gathering method: it’s crazy to me that this is considered sound research.

The authors selected a respected academic journal to use as their source material. They procured twelve keywords out of nowhere, which they feel somehow represent a professional designer. They searched for these keywords, and then somehow discarded 60 of 81 of the results. Of the remaining 21, they counted references to the keywords, and then used that count, which almost always was below 5, to make sweeping generalizations. The mechanics of this make no sense to me, and beyond the mechanics, the assumptions are so bizarre—that somehow the things academic researchers chose to research represent the things designers actually are, or do, or become. And, I searched Design Studies for just one of the twelve keywords, expertise, from 2001 to 2015 (this paper was written in 2016) and got 569 results.

Next, the authors selected two different personality trait inventories with which to compare their data. Why? Why do this at all; why select these inventories; and, if what the authors say is true (“Together these models allow for a cohesive framework in which to bring together the disparate design literature”), then why continue making their own framework? The authors describe that the 21 papers they selected don’t discuss things like self-confidence. Even the most rudimentary reflection will show that of course self-confidence plays a role in the development of a designer’s identity, and the lack of reference in the texts is a selection problem, not an actual finding to be used in a descriptive framework that is intended to transcend the data.

Their conclusion in this section is “From this review it is possible to initially conclude that all the identified attributes are relevant although not all have been widely studied in design, and there are no current frameworks where they have been holistically linked in the design literature. In addition no extant framework brings together both personality and skills perspectives.” What a grandiose statement; it isn’t possible to initially conclude anything like that.

The next section, focused on skills, entirely writes off the development of any individual and domain-specific skill. Of course these play a role in the creation of a designer’s identity: “I can’t draw” has a huge and meaningful impact on the way a designer sees themselves and how they present themselves to others, as does “I can’t [anything]”, or even more importantly, “I can [draw wireframes, model in clay, make interactive prototypes in Figma, sketch storyboards, ask good research questions, disseminate a diary study, etc]. These specific skills are just as important as generalized methods and approaches, as the output is what is judged by non-design peers.

The initial framework that’s presented is fine, but highly reductive; it’s hard to believe that this contribution—that personal attributes, design skills, and personal aspects are embedded in a context, and that changes over time—is useful to further research. But the next two models are so, so bizarre. If I try to be objective, my read of the first is:

• A designer’s identity is half made up of skills and half made up of various amounts of the various HEXACO/B5 categories
• The half of the categories represents someone’s work environment
• This is more important than a professional context, as it sits on top of it
• This then is more important than someone’s life background
• This importance grows over time

How do they know that 50% of a designer’s identity is made of skills? How do they know that an identity has more honesty and humility than conscientiousness and responsibility? Then is the model only relevant for someone’s work environment? How is it that life background happens before someone’s work environment? The subsequent model has the same type of crazy positioning, with “Personal attributes” now making up 50% of someone’s identity, and, as an example, management skills than taking up 25% of the remainder.

The limitations referenced are not the limitations, and as written, they authors write off each of their proposed limitations. They explain that their research didn’t capture every work in the area (hello, it captured TWENTY-ONE), but then says that isn’t important. They describe that they arbitrarily changed their method, but that it was used to improve the framework. They explain that the discussion was limited (why? Because they ran out of space?), but that if the discussion was allowed, it would be better.

Technically, the paper has a number of typos and strangely-structured sentences in the later sections, and the entire tone of the writing changes, which leads me to believe that another author took over. And, it just ends, in the middle of a thought.

My biggest issue with this, though, is that the statements that are made with assertion are just nuts, with this being one of the biggest offenders: “Thus, work is usually done for the sake of identity-building, such as gaining advancement and recognition that validate the self.” What…… Somehow designers work only for externalities? I don’t even know how to start addressing how naïve and incomplete this idea is.

I'm all fired up about this. I don't know why it makes me so frustrated. I need to reflect on that. Tomorrow I will read parts of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's description of Creativity, another suggestion by Carl....