If you’re like me and you became a designer not because you wanted to make things look good but because you wanted to create things that worked while looking good, the definition of design shouldn’t be a stranger to you. However, the truth is that everyone perceives design in different ways, and as such, it is also our work to influence how other people, not only the end-users of what we have to design, interpret our approach to design.

Understanding the role of design in a project or what kind of designer one has to be to deliver the best work for a particular challenge is one of the most complex topics that take time to master.

Over the past few months, the idea of “perspective” in the role of design and how it aligns with problem-solving has been a topic that I wanted to expand on, both by sharing my vision as well as researching it.

The topic of designers having a seat at the table and how they can influence something more than just the look and feel of the product is a recurrent theme in the designer space and many have tried to offer alternatives on how to gain acknowledgement, such as Eric Chung on Why can’t designers get a seat at the table? or Designers As Leaders: Now that we have a seat at the table, how do we prove we belong? by Doug Powell.

Below is one approach that could provide tools for others to discuss this alignment on the roles of the designer in that particular project. Some problems merely need an interface that accommodates a feature interacting with a user, while others allow designers to align with business and other players to understand the wider challenge and opportunity to be tackled.

The roles of creators and fabricators

A fabricator is a person who, as part of the industrial process, assembles or puts together products by assembling components already built, relying on their craft with the tools to deliver the result.