I’ll add to that “continuing education”—Don Norman has taught me a thing or two as well.
Truth is, the older I get the more I realize how little I know. And I’ve learned that to be a decent designer you must always be willing to learn and, for the most part, unconcerned with making studied mistakes.
Don Norman is a design pioneer, Director of The Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego, cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, IDEO fellow, former Vice President of Apple. If you’re a designer, or hope to become one, his articles should be mandatory reading.
Start with, Why Design Education Must Change. It’s from 2010 but perhaps more relevant today than it was when he wrote it. A brief excerpt:
Designers often fail to understand the complexity of the issues and the depth of knowledge already known. They claim that fresh eyes can produce novel solutions, but then they wonder why these solutions are seldom implemented, or if implemented, why they fail. Fresh eyes can indeed produce insightful results, but the eyes must also be educated and knowledgeable. Designers often lack the requisite understanding. Design schools do not train students about these complex issues, about the interlocking complexities of human and social behavior, about the behavioral sciences, technology, and business. There is little or no training in science, the scientific method, and experimental design.
DON NORMAN
Why Design Education Must Change…
There’s a followup here…
Design Education: Brilliance Without Substance…
And you can catch up with his current thinking this and other topics…
Through the Design Lab at the University of California…
Through one of his may appearances through YouTube…
For example…
Norman is also the author of Living with Complexity and others…
Posted in JULY 2019 / Chuck Green is the principal of Logic Arts, a design and marketing firm, a contributor to numerous magazines and websites, and the author of books published by Random House, Peachpit Press, and Rockport Publishers. All rights reserved. Copyright 2007-2019 Chuck Green/Logic Arts Corporation. Contact.
It is impossible to live in a cocoon and even if you could, the technology savvy communication conglomerates would find a way to beam information into your secluded little dwelling.