When you talk to someone and say
"Good Designers do 'X',"
what are the top things you list?
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Good Designers do “X” is a collection of 179 statements of what “good designers do”, sourced from 34 individuals in the field of design and engineering education.
Good designers...
“Do not fall in love with their own ideas” — Sheri Sheppard
“Work across a wide span of attention to different facets of the problem and solution” — Nigel Cross
“Recognize that “going back” to prior decisions and revising is not evidence of a mistake, but rather part of a thorough and thoughtful journey” — Shanna Daly
We believe the Good Designers do “X” collection can be a powerful resource for design education, broadening the ways in which we understand and talk about design, design processes, design behaviors, and designing for good.
We are excited to present the Good Designers do “X” collection here! This page contains information about the Good Designers do “X” collection, the collection itself (as a document, a spreadsheet, playing cards, or business cards), and activities that you can do using the collection.
The Design Signatures Team created a list of names based on professional connections to the design research and engineering design education communities. Individuals on the list were sent personalized emails inviting them to respond to the prompt: “When you talk to someone and say “Good designers do ‘X’”, what are the top 4 or 5 things you list? I’m looking for ‘off the top of your head’ answers.”
Each individual provided a full list of statements, which are the “original statements”. For practical reasons, the Design Signatures Team then went through the responses and made them more concise to better fit the card deck and business cards, which became the “shortened statements.” These were collected from Winter 2022 through Summer 2023.
As of Summer 2023, the statements from the Good Designers do “X” collection are sourced from the following 34 individuals:
We’ve provided the following four formats for the collection. The first two are individual databases for the statements, and the second two are printable versions of the statements.
Good Designers do "X" Document
Google Document containing the individuals’ names, titles, their institutions, and all original and shortened statements
Good Designers do "X" Spreadsheet
Google Spreadsheet containing the individuals’ names, institutions, and all shortened statements
Good Designers do "X" Card Deck
PDF of a printable card deck of the individuals’ names and shortened statements
8.5” x 11” paper; each sheet has 8 cards; must be cut by hand
Good Designers do "X" Business Cards
PDF of printable business cards of the individuals’ names and shortened statements
8.5” x 11” paper; each sheet has 10 business cards; can be printed on perforated business card paper
In your classroom and collaborative spaces, the Good Designers do “X” collection can be a tool for opening up conversations around design goals and personal design aspirations. Each of the three activities here work as standalone activities. We also encourage you to adapt any of these to fit your needs or even create new ways of using the collection.
For each activity, the setup time for the physical version is longer than that of the virtual version because the physical version requires that you print and cut out physical cards. The benefit is that once you set up the physical version once, you can use it again for all other activities.
Good Designers do “X”: Affinity GroupingSubject area: Understanding design, Design expertise, Design process, Self-reflection
Activity type: Affinity grouping, Discussion
Activity time: 40 minutes
Good Designers do “X”: Pick a CardSubject area: Understanding design, Design expertise, Design process, Self-reflection
Activity type: Discussion
Activity time: 25-45 minutes
Good Designers do “X”: Mapping Design to Conceptual FrameworksSubject area: Teamwork, Design expertise, Design process, Self-reflection
Activity type: Affinity grouping, Discussion
Activity time: 45-50 minutes