Just switching comparisons around like you mention doesn’t work – there’s no danger of devaluing what design means by saying writing is design. Because writing is design doesn’t automatically lead to design being writing. It’s clearly not. Designing a chair isn’t writing. Designing a logo isn’t writing.

Chickens are birds, but not all birds are chickens. Writing is a form of design, design isn’t a form of writing. Not all design is visual either (in fact, a large portion of it isn’t), but making that statement doesn’t make everything that isn’t visual design.

It’s not that I don’t think all the things you can do with computers aren’t great – I’m an interaction designer after all. The problem is exactly that all the things you can do with computers are great and you can do them pretty quickly. Imagine what a 16th century stone-mason would think to have thousands of typefaces at our fingertips. He would have had to have learn how to carve each one perfectly. Keeping up with the plethora of tools and updates often happens at the expense of improving what you already know how to do.

That’s why I like writing so much – I learned the technique of how to physically write letters and words when I was about five years old. The rest of the time I have spent trying to put the words in the right order.

Tell me more about voice interaction design.

Good post. I’ve long agreed that the writing process, from important email to paper to book, is a design process no different from others. Who will read it? What do they care about? What do I want them to know at each step? How will they know when they reach the big point? Beyond that, it includes research, sketches (outlines), prototypes (drafts), feedback loops, and even evolution (future editions).

I was taught to write well at various points in my education and have long valued that. I work in voice interaction design and design consists not just of orchestrating flow through tasks but also of creating the words and phrases that will guide a person through. To do that, I write. :) So writing is designing, er, literally.

ph

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Most writing involves a design process. You think about something you want to comment about – the design problem. Come up with ideas usually in a bit of jumble, organise them, and work through a very similar process of iteration and refinement. This is especially true in any kind of creative writing and screenwriting where you are literally designing the story and dramatic arc.

Naturally, as an interaction and experience and service designer, I don’t think design is (just) about visuals. Design is how you look at the world and think about it more than the visual manifestation – that’s the difference between someone who can use Photoshop and a designer using Photoshop. Sound designers are designers too, after all.

I don’t know if being a designer has made me a better writer because I started designing before I started writing in earnest. I don’t think so though. I have read a lot of awful writing by really good designers. I’m sure there is some awful design by great writers too.

The point for me is about the pace of writing and how it lends a discipline to creative thought that visual design does not always, especially on a computer.

That being able to write has a lot of advantages for the design process is undoubted for me (for words enable you to express things, that you cannot do visually) Would you though state that being able to design also allows you to be a better writer; and if yes, than how?