Some time ago I watched a PBS Frontline documentary called the Card Game. It is an interesting program to see how creative bankers design complex credit card services that seem very attractive, but with hidden and expensive fees. I receive offers of these kind 2 or 3 times a week.

The consequences of these now popular practices are related to the recent financial outbreak in United States. This is an example of service design that instead of satisfying human needs, take advantage of them to enhance the profits. The old model of banking charged fees for use of services and interests for credit services. At the end of the 20th century the business model turned into free use of services and zero percent interest (at least in the first year of service) but with drastic penalties for overdraft and late payments.

An essential element of this model has been the creation of visual messages consisting of high hierarchy information of the free services and the low hierarchy information of the severe penalties. Then, this visual information uses the principles of human-centered design for profits instead of human needs. There are more vulnerable populations such as functional illiterates that more usually do not process low hierarchy information and make more mistakes tracking money balances. Indeed, people that do not control well their balances pay the fees that keep the system viable.

This case allows an understanding of critical challenges for visual communication designers in satisfying human needs. Human-centered design can be a fallacy in visual communication design where the client need usually is more about hiding rather than displaying clear information.

In this post I note how politics can teach designers about message content.

This is elections year in my country, Colombia, which has suffered of corruption for long time. Traditional groups of politicians have controlled significant number of the votes that give them power to define the next president. 8 years ago, current president Alvaro Uribe won the elections with an unprecedented portion of opinion votes because he delivered a strong and simple message: security. People were tired of guerrilla and voted for him. 4 years ago he won again because he showed good results in security. Uribe’s parties became the “new” traditional and, sadly, people have seen the persistence of corruption and illegality.

Today, the 2 major runners for president have an interesting contrast of message: simple and complex. Juan M Santos, former head of defense, belongs to Uribe’s party and his message is simple: “because going back isn’t an option” referring mainly to security. It is basically a contemporary political marketing strategy. The other runner, Antanas Mockus, former Bogotá major, has a more complex message that is difficult to summarize. He argues that all citizens have to be legal, from families to government administrators. He plans a large educative intervention in social and citizenship competencies. Although it is complex, it seems to be clear for opinion votes that transparency could be the way to go. Lately, the survey trends have shown a decreasing vote intention for the Santos’s simple approach and an increasing intention for the Mockus’ complex approach.

Because past Uribe’s simple message was successful and current Mockus complex message might be, there is no a best way to deliver a message. I’ve seen a trend in design and other areas of life for simplicity that not always applies. Although Mockus’ ideas are complex, they need to be complex. Besides, Mockus uses well-crafted and powerful metaphors that have entered in many people’s mind. We’ll see soon who wins between simple and complex messages.

To learn more about current elections: http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16015299&fsrc=rss

The video below is a documentary about Bogotá that shows how Mockus uses metaphors to explain complex concepts.

I got my Design Council newsletter today. It has a quite old user-centered design article (2007) that made me recall some questions I have about the diverse design ideas and methods today. The article makes interesting comments about how design is still focused on companies rather than users. Most of the claims were not new like the Norman principles but anyway highly worth. The article suggests that one should be cautious about the issues you ask users. It uses the meaning quote from Henry Ford: “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.” I find this quote is very inspiring. Also, the article recommends that the designer must look at how users actually behave, not what they say they do. I agree that user-center design approach is the way for efficient objects whatever they are, but is efficiency the only need?

It seems that design practitioners that are applying user-centered design are refining the way they understand users. This is very good for design and for users. However, I just wonder if this method alone is enough for society’s needs. I believe that although user-centered design is necessary, it is an incomplete method that should be connected to an integral idea of design. Think for example in sustainability, can design be green and user-centered at the same time? I’d say that it should be. It happens too with other “new designs” like social design, universal design and so on. Design practice should be integral, not only efficient, not only green, not only inclusive, but all of them.