We live in a society of consumption. Our voracious and seemingly endless appetite for more, better, bigger, and easier is leaving our planet overrun and creating an environment that may not be able to sustain human life.
As designers, are we partially responsible? Are we helping or hurting?
The common and understandable perception is that designers just make more stuff the world doesn't need, but this is unfair. Good designers—conscientious designers—work with sustainability in mind. They know they need to create products, services, and environments that make sense for clients, and work for and with our earth. In other words: Profitable sustainability.
How is it to be done?
A simple—but not sufficient—answer might be to design more environmentally friendly products and processes. This might be called the "diet chocolate cake" approach: Keep doing what we are good at and giving people what they want, but somehow do it less harmfully. At the other end of the spectrum is the abstinence approach: Plead guilty to the charge that designers spend a lot of time designing "elegant landfill" and stop doing it. The great designer Dieter Rams, for example, called for a less wasteful approach in his monograph, "Less But Better."
A Better Kind of Better
I think we need better—but not necessarily less—design. Indeed, designers need to strive for a better kind of better. The days of prevailing in the marketplace by producing a better thing or a better service—more desirable, easier to use, easier to manufacture or deliver—are passing. The winners now will be those who provide customers with the best total experience. People want great experiences and will pay for them. OnStar's innovative way of offering GPS directions to drivers is a good example.
Using a GPS (global positioning system) system to find your way to the airport is definitely better than getting lost and missing your plane. But dealing with the GPS display can be complex and stressful. Often, stopping at a gas station and getting directions from a friendly local is easier. OnStar realized that instead of providing the best (most sophisticated and expensive) technology, it could provide the best (least stressful) experience. So with OnStar, there is no display or complex keyboard to deal with. When you push the single OnStar button, you talk to a real human being who—unlike expensive and confusing LCD displays and keyboards—naturally understands your wishes.
The operator then handles the sophisticated technology at the core of the OnStar system (they know how so you don't have to) in order to provide the directions you need, and can as well make hotel reservations and send flowers for you. Here the experience is paramount: The business model, the interaction design, and the technology are all informed by the vision of delivering a better experience. And the profits for OnStar are actually higher because the systems installed in each car are both less expensive and less wasteful (there are no displays and keyboards to discard), while generating an ongoing revenue stream.
Profitable Sustainability
Have I forgotten about global warming and sustainability? Not at all. If a great customer experience also happens to reduce waste and consumption, so much the better.
A few years ago, Continuum helped Procter & Gamble (PG) develop the Swiffer cleaning system. The Swiffer is a truly great success from a business standpoint, both as a customer-delighting experience and as an example of profitable sustainability. Cleaning the floor with an old-fashioned mop and detergent is a messy and unpleasant job that uses many gallons of hot water and great amounts of detergent every week in millions of homes around the world. The water, the energy needed to heat that water, and the environmental impact of dumping the detergent into the waste stream are terribly costly, and all for a job no one likes doing anyway.