Public Education & Design

Sarah Shuda

Design education and the lack of support for creativity in our schools continues to be diminished. I wanted to discuss some of the problems and possible solutions to help improve and highlight those who choose to pursue creativity in their lives.

What is Creativity?

Creativity: “the process of having original ideas that have value”. -Ken Robinson

Creativity is often looked upon in education as something you don’t make money doing. I’m proud to say that is not the case in my own experiences and in many other talented creative professionals experiences around the world. But, there is a constant degradation of creativity in the realm of education. Something that molds us and where we spent the majority of our time as we are growing into the world.

Creative Education at a Young Age

Are kids frightened to be wrong?

Robinson (sources below) mentions how children are taught to fear being wrong over the course of their education. Creativity is all about being wrong. If you don’t know the answer to something, how can you come up with something different or ever better with a fear instilled in you? We are educating children out of their creativity. Teaching kids how to handle being wrong and trying to find another solution, whether it be right or wrong, but merely different is important.

Arts at the Bottom

Hierarchy of subjects is the same around the world in schools. The arts always remain at the bottom. Math and sciences remain at the top. Many schools are focused on what will provide children with a job when they graduate. So they stifle students ability to be creative and look down upon those careers which us so called “creatives” might find to be a good fit. Last time I looked there were thousands of jobs available for creative professionals.

Embracing creativity doesn’t mean you are destined to be starving upon entering the “real world”. I know many creative and successful people who have embraced their particular creative strengths AND were able to put food on the table for their families.

Web Design Specialities

Specialization

Part of the problem in the web design world is the lack of specialization or even the knowledge of what specialities exist within the web design industry. For example, a web designer could also fall into any of the following careers: Information Architecture, User Experience, Usability Testing, User Interface Designer, App Designer (even nailed down to a specific platform) and Website Designer (of course 😊)

Students who study usability, interface design and page and site architecture, as well as elements of design and principles such as information hierarchy, have a more attractive skill set to potential employers. -Brian Miller

When I was in college receiving my Bachelor of Fine Arts, many of these specialties didn’t exist or were just being formed. It seems to be the larger problem in public universities is the ability to keep up with the pace of the industry. I had spoken with one of the professors at the college I attended at a conference in the area about a year or so ago. I asked her how long it took to change lesson plans and have them approved by whomever needed to approve them. She said, “typically a year to two years time.”

Something is seriously wrong with that.

By the time a year passes, new, better ways of designing for interactive media has changed. Maybe even more than a handful of times. But two years? No wonder students are coming out of school and are having an incredibly hard time finding jobs. If they aren’t prepared and up to date on web standards and methodology, how will they ever pay back all the money they spent getting an outdated education? If this is the case, many web design students can stay more in the loop discovering techniques online–for free in many cases. Or by taking on internships for free. Why are students paying for an education that will leave them jobless?

Another example comes to mind. I attended a roundtable discussion called evolvedesign back in January of 2011. It was an incredible discussion about the evolution of design and education of course, plays a huge role in that evolution. The discussion turned into a heated debate as a few of the panel members were design educators. A very brave member of the panel, an interactive studio principal, took a stand and said some very controversial things. It was not taken well by a particular member of the audience. That member happened to be a professor at one of the schools the panel member was calling out for poor placement rates.

What the panel member spoke about was the social responsibility of professors. If the students didn’t have the skills or were not ready to enter the workforce, should they receive a degree saying they are? I think the bigger problem lies in what is being taught. If the professors who are passing students who are not ready for the real world and who they don’t believe could find a job in their chosen field, aren’t they doing a disservice to these poor students?

Collaboration

Collaboration with web developers is essential in building the skills a web designer needs to succeed. I have seen this disconnect not only in schools, but also in the workplace. Web designers need to have at minimum, a basic understanding of what it takes to develop a website. They should be involved with the development process and visa versa. Technical limitations are discovered during the design process to save time and money. If there is no interaction between designer and developer, you can see how quickly projects can go sour.

It’s also important that web designers develop the ability to form relationships with developers, just as art directors have partnered with copywriters for so many years. Web design educators could give more collaborative assignments where students have to work with others with complimenting skill sets to complete a project. Ideally, this would include students from other disciplines such as computer science to be more reflective of a true working environment. -Brian Miller

Learning How to Learn

One of the most important skills to have as a creative professional is the ability to figure things out that you may not know how to do. In such a new and fast-paced industry of the web, so many things have yet to be created or discovered. Learning how to find the information you need to do your job is crucial to success.

Solutions to Improving Web Design Education

Should professors being required to practice within the design industry themselves as they are teaching?
Should they be allowed to teach what they want to teach as the industry changes? Waiting even 1 year to change lesson plans could be detrimental to students.
Should students be failed more often for not performing? If professors are teaching up to date materials, students should stay in school until they are prepared and fit to get a job in the industry. I understand schools need to make money and keep the flow of students in and out of the schools at a reasonable pace. But something seems to be broken if students are not receiving the jobs they have paid good money to be prepared for.