I’m constantly iterating and tweaking this site, in the way that any digital platform or tool should be tweaked. Bugs and issues get seen to, features or sections get added, design is changed based on fancy or feedback.

One tweak today has been changing the placeholder ‘Hello’ text at the top of the homepage, to ‘What do we mean by design?’. It represents a slight change of strategy and a bit of an experiment.

It’s not ‘final’ – in the way that any digital platform is never really finished – but I wanted to start bringing my mission further up the page. This phrase (originally ‘What do we mean when we say design?’) is a short embodiment of the Venn diagram further down (and replicated here for posterity, as I see a time when it too will change and disappear from the homepage).

What do we mean when we say design? / What do we mean by design? turns my Venn diagram of internal interests into an outward question. It’s me, trying to tease visitors into thinking about the same three subjects and their overlapping nature. That’s what I want to do more of, so that’s why I made the change.

Out of (further) interest, I did a quick search after changing the question to just ‘What do we mean by design?’ and came across this old Nesta post with the same title. That’s good company to keep I think, and not infringing enough to make me want to change it back.

As much as I like Nesta however, I must say that I’m not entirely into that post. Deconstructing that though, and expanding on what I mean by design, and why I want to ask that question will come later, in future iterations, tweaks and posts.

As a slight teaser though – and by way of addressing the similarity with the even shorter and more classic ‘what is design’ question – I want to get into the psychological and cultural side of things. To see if there are more productive ways to develop a shared and honest understanding of design and design processes.