The Institute of Design released the Lead with Purpose report to highlight design’s central role in realizing executive vision.
Consider a home remodel. Most architects create schematic drawings. Other architects and tradespeople can see these two-dimensional drawings and immediately translate them into 3-D spaces in their minds. But most other people can’t. So, if you’re building a house and have only these drawings to go on, you’re hoping the outcome is what you ultimately want your house to be, but you don’t really know. You are trusting others to be your voice in the process of building your house.
But let’s say that the floor plan is put into a virtual reality environment that you, the owner of that space, can physically walk through. This is a higher prototype, compared to the schematic drawing, and now you can see and experience your space in its 3-D form before it is built. Now you can form an educated opinion, a high-level certainty about whether this new space will meet all your needs. You are empowered to make changes before the space is built. Instead of feeling restricted by design elitism and the esoteric knowledge of the person you hired, you are personally empowered through the increasing capabilities of design methods and tools.
It’s a democracy movement that design should lead. Prototyping and visualizing how ideas are coming to life is the secret sauce of design and the reason designers are well positioned to define and facilitate the Intent-to-Effect Pathway.
Explore the full 2020 ID Report in our Resource Library. You can also download the PDF.