This past week and change we’ve heard some fantastic discussions about our role and potential as game designers in the world. Not to say our role isn’t a little vague – but that’s a good thing – so as a collective we’re very curious to hear and discuss our collective role in today’s political landscape. Do we really have a role, and if so what is it? Why are we here? What’s the point? We aren’t quite sure if you’re all seeing the same thing, but in the interest of creating a common language to communicate effectively we are proposing a few changes to terminology to eliminate confusion. What are Designers and Design? It’s important to have some common ground here so that we can better discuss our function in the world. The terms designer and design are already taken, which can make it difficult for us to be understood. At The Agency we have proposed a few new terms, but before going further I think it’s important to consider some of the work we’re doing. We are not making new products for our society, but making them more inclusive for everyone. Now, “inclusive” is a term with many meanings, some we may want to consider more carefully. What we know for sure, is that we are helping to improve communication. We are helping people. These are actions that help people improve their lives, and that’s important. This also means that we help people by improving their communication with one another. Design is more than just a word that people use. It has a deep meaning to many, because it has an important part in many parts of our lives. It’s good to acknowledge that. This makes it hard to describe our work, because our work is often hidden. We can’t exactly show our work to the world. People would like to see it – they’d like to see what we’re doing. It makes it very hard for people to understand. The new terms we propose can help with that. As a design team we’re not going to create things that need explaining. The only way to fully understand our work is to do it yourself. As for the term designer, I’d like to discuss what that word means. As a label, we have to take the time to establish some definitions for people to understand our role, but I think it’s important to also ask why a designer would choose a term like this. In most languages a designer is someone who designs physical things. We are not physical beings. We are not limited to designing physical things and that makes us valuable. However, this term may have some very deep connotations and as such would be too confusing for many. We can’t expect everyone to get it. When we talk about design as a concept we may need a more abstract term. Designers also sometimes use the term to show a responsibility to the design. But again, the majority of people are not designers and so this term may cause confusion. Is it a responsibility to design things? We think this is a bit like a designer being responsible for making traffic flow better. The designer is not the road design, but he is helping it to function well. We can only expect so many people to get that. But design is important. It makes life better for everyone. Design is often a secret. When we design things they may not be clear to people at all. Instead we’re designing communication or interaction. There may not be a physical thing – or there may be. It may be a better one or it may not. In this case design may not exist in the physical world. When we talk about design we’re talking about communication. There may be no physical thing to interact with – but there’s always interaction. It’s important to show people this better. It makes life better. The point of our talk here is not to show people our new work, but to help people understand our work. Our goal is to design the products, the tools, and the services to make people more capable, to help them communicate and function more effectively. There are three parts to a design. First is to make things (products, tools, services). Second is to make things that enable communication (for users). Lastly is to make it work better for everyone (for users and their stakeholders). When we talk about design we often talk about making things more usable. However, at The Agency we’re not just making things that are usable. We also make things that help people communicate and function better – this is often more important than the work we’re doing. Finally there’s another aspect to a design that is overlooked – what about the work we do? At The Agency we have helped people design the communities we live in. This means that we’ve made communities better for everyone, and as a result more inclusive. We have also helped people design things that are more fun for everyone. This means that fun things are more accessible, and therefore more useful and functional. It’s about making life better. We all work hard to get stuff done. We all have work that’s important. Making it better for everyone can be hard, but so is making it better for everyone. Hard is good, and in some cases it makes life better. We work hard to make life better for everyone, no matter the type of work we do. Sometimes we’re making tools, sometimes we’re helping people communicate, sometimes we’re helping people navigate spaces we all share. Sometimes we’re doing both at the same time. We do hard work to help people navigate their communities more effectively. What’s hard for us is we can’t show anyone this. We have no product to show. Making stuff just to show people what we did – not useful at all. Our work isn’t so good that we need to make special product to show off. We believe we help people most effectively by designing things that allow us to help people as they need. Many times people aren’t aware that this is a thing we’re trying to do. Making our work clear and accessible is key. But we also believe that work can be useful and fun. Making things that are fun is great for the human mind and body. We can make things more fun – but we need to know how to do it. So we have to design things that are better for everyone. Making life better is hard, but it can be fun. So we try. We work hard to make life better for everyone. What’s hard is making this clear. Not just for the people we work with, but for everyone. It’s important to show this. We design things that people need to make their lives better. It’s an important work, which is why we need to discuss what we do – what it means. It’s hard work. We may design products, tools, services, or anything. But the work we do is still important. We may not design anything at all, and sometimes that’s just fine. Sometimes the work we do is designing ourselves. In this case it means designing something new about ourselves, to be better at whatever we do. If we can improve ourselves we’re more likely to be useful to other people. So we can design something. Even if it’s just a small change to ourselves. Design-Thinking We all have to work hard to make things better. However, sometimes making things better is hard. This is the thing that can cause us to question if we’re doing something useful or if we’re just a waste of time. I think everyone understands this deep down in their soul – the pain of knowing we’re wasting time and feeling powerless because of it. What we have to do is talk about what we’re doing, especially with others. We can start with what we’re not doing. In the past we have done work that feels completely pointless. It’s hard to explain. We designed communication products that didn’t work at all. The Agency spent a lot of time and money to do things that have had no effect on the people we work with. This is really hard, especially when everyone understands your work. When you help them make things better, and it doesn’t help people, this is hard. We are the designers, and we have to take responsibility for everything we do. It’s hard to know if we’re doing the right thing. It’s hard to figure out if we’re wasting our time, which is a hard thing to talk about. It’s hard to know if this is something worthwhile. Sometimes it’s hard, but not impossible. When we’re designing, this is the important thing to do. Talk to people about it. Talk to people about how you’re doing it. Talk to people about what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it. We need to talk about our work – not just for us, but for everyone. When we do this it will become clear what we need to do. If we’re good at designing things – we’re not working hard enough. Sometimes we get hard work, but it’s not clear enough why. Sometimes it’s hard to see the work we’re doing, because our work is not yet complete. This is hard to talk about with others, especially when everyone understands our work is hard and you have to talk about it. As a team we are on a big path of figuring out how to talk about the work we do. We want to make it better, and make it clear why we’re doing what we’re doing. To do this we have to communicate with others as much as possible