Context

Global Design is the term for a user-centered-interface design that describes a user-centered interface that is created to be used by a worldwide group of people. Therefore, in both definition and practice, design cannot be based on the personal sense of any one designer or nation. Instead, it has to be as usable and convenient for any user around the globe irrespective of cultural design difference. The most apparent difference in design culture begins with terminology, as there are different expressions for the same concept. Apple calls it ‘Global Design or Human Interface Guidelines’, whereas Google calls it ‘Material Design’ and Microsoft calls it formerly ‘Modern UI’ and nowadays ‘Fluent Design’. This thesis will refer to the concept expressed in these three terms as ‘Global Design’.

Problem Statement

If we look at popular online design platforms, such as behance.net, dribble.com, abduzeedo.com, it seems that the work published on these platforms, as well as the platforms themselves, are following the same style, trend and way of designing. These platforms and designers all speak the same visual language, the Anglo-Saxon design language.

A significant characteristic of Anglo-Saxon design is the minimal use of colours. Often Sans Serif fonts such as Open Sans, Brandon, Helvetica and Futura are used in this style of design. A good example of this style of design is the phenomena of ‘modern or fashionable coffee shops’ all around the globe. Their corporate design and shop fronts all follow the same visual language; clean lines, and bold sans serif fonts combined with an icon. More often than not the shop name and logo are displayed in white on a black background.

To properly identify why and how a visual language is so different for a nation and to make those differences somehow comparable to non-designers would be a thesis in itself. Therefore, this thesis can only compare the interaction between Information Architecture (iA), colour palettes, typography and the composition of designs but to name the exact factors is beyond the scope of this thesis. No designer can deny that countries have a very specific style and way of designing and therefore a unique look of their own, which shows clearly that there are independent and individual styles for every nation.

Despite the rapid rate of globalisation, it seems incongruous that design style in different countries has become so homogenous. People are speaking different languages, but designing in the same language. It seems as though the above mentioned design platforms are imposing a design style and uniformity on their designers. As each culture’s visual language becomes more globalised, the nuances of design that helped us recognise that we are in a different country, city or place have been lost. What or who is influencing design to become more global? What or who is responsible for this global visual language? Is it dangerous, and what is the purpose of it?

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary the definition of ‘design’ is:

a particular purpose or intention held in view by an individual or group.

Obviously, there are multiple ways and opinions to express what design really is, but one has to understand that the definition and purpose of design is changing the way we look at the scale of the target group and the associated action range. In other words, the broader the scale of the target group, the greater the scale of the action range. These must always be in direct proportion to one another.

The global players such as Apple, Microsoft and Google claim to design for a global audience, yet every continent, country, city, and individual has a unique way of expressing and interpreting information. How can a company claim to create something so global and culturally uniform, that it can be accessed by users across the globe, irrespective of heritage, culture, or written & spoken language?

Approach & Research Question

The aim of the thesis is to discuss Global versus Local design, and attempt to offer reasons why design should be contextualised, through exploring some of the dangers of not doing so. In offering a critique of Global Design, the thesis will aim to uncover some of the underlying issues caused by Global Design, it arguably being a hegemonic ‘imperialistic‘ style of design, that negatively impacts design as a whole.

Visual Languages & Cultures

A visual language is often very similar to the spoken language which is defined as:

words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community.

It is personal and framed within contextual self-identification. The visual language follows the same concept of individualism & identification as a verbal language, transferred into a visual perception.

In this thesis a ‘visual language’ is described as:

A systematic way of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of colours, typography, pictures and the composition of those in different formats and on different mediums.

A visual culture can be also compared to the normal sense of culture which is described as:

A culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.

In this thesis a ‘visual culture’ is described as:

A culture is the grouping of similarities within a group of people likewise the visual culture.

This can be illustrated through analysing dialects of the same or similar language across regions. People who speak the same language but with varying dialects will recognize the language of another person, even though they speak different dialects, and may not be completely fluent in each others’ dialects.

As an example, German as a spoken language is rich in dialects such as Bayrisch, Österreichisch, Norddeutsch, Kölsch, Schweizerisch, Berliner Schnauze, Plattdeutsch, Schwäbisch, Fränkisch, Hessisch, Sächsisch and Pfälzisch. A French person would most probably not be able to distinguish the dialects unless they spoke German. In order to understand the differences between the dialects, the French person would need to understand the context and the cultural background related to each dialect. The French person would only judge by the sound of the dialect, which would sound either beautiful or not. This example illustrates how unique, yet varied visual languages and cultures can be. Every village, city, country and continent has a unique culture, languages and dialects. A foreigner coming into a new country may not fully understand its culture and language, in the same way a designer viewing another designer’s work from a different origin, may not fully comprehend the design because they lack the cultural background knowledge of the artist.

How to Define those?

Through my research and travels, I was fortunate enough to be able to learn about multiple visual cultures and languages. Unfortunately, I was never in one village or city long enough to feel confident enough to appropriately express the nuances in each visual language (on a micro level) as I would be in Germany.

This cluster attempts to illustrate the different spheres of visual culture and visual language. I suggest the following structure, that will help to classify what a visual culture and what a language is.

Design Imperialism

There exists a danger that as the rest of the world willfully accepts this style as Global Design, we lose the vernacular design style expressed by individual countries.

These issue are already presenting themselves, as illustrated by the examples explored in this thesis. This paper has illustrated that from city to continent, every single scale of region has its own style. As local businesses begin to follow the global leaders in design, such as Apple, vernacular styles have the potential to be eradicated in an attempt to become more globalised. This can be explained by comparing the visual design of a small independent bakery in Berlin, Germany to Apple. The target market of the bakery is aimed at Berlin locals, whereas Apple’s target market is arguably, the entire planet comprising billions of people, all speaking different visual languages. Thus the visual designs of each of these businesses need to look different to appeal to their respective target markets. If every bakery in Berlin, adopted the same Global Design style as Apple, the local design style of Berlin would eventually fade from existence. This adoption of Global Design preference over local design is already prevalent in East and Southern African design cultures. The loss of the rich hand lettering culture unique to this region is already evident in favour of Global Design styles. This is also evident online as desktop publishing becomes more popular and local crafts can’t sustain themselves in rapidly changing modern cities.

The beauty in local design is that the designer can produce a piece of work that is unique and tailor-made to his/her target market. Therefore, the global design style is better suited to a global scale and should not be adopted in its purest form by local businesses.

The negative impact Global Design has had on design as a whole is important to recognise and understand, yet the underlying brilliance of what Global Design has achieved is hard to ignore. One cannot deny that Global Design has changed the world and its users’ daily lives. The interaction between humans and devices of any kind has become more private and personal than ever before; mobile devices have become so integrated into their users’ daily lives that they can be considered an extension of themselves. This would not have been achieved had it not been for Global Design influence on the smartphone revolution. Global Design has reached a milestone for a new era of technology. It has allowed smartphones to become more efficient, intuitive, usable and relevant than ever before.

Through the similarity in iA and website menu guidance the user is never challenged to think outside the box or outside its standard behavior. Worst, the user is never encouraged to learn something new, as most of the popular websites use the same web layouts and methods. The smallest changes within apps often have a noticeable effect on huge numbers of users. Companies are trapped and tend to stick to the mainstream iA, website layout and menu guidance.

Two former Apple employees, Norman and Tognazzini, have a different opinion about the way global companies, such as Apple, design and have gone so far to say that ‘Apple is destroying design’. They have stated the following in an attempt to express Apple’s influence on visual design across the globe.

Design is a way of thinking, of determining people’s true, underlying needs, and then delivering products and services that fulfil those needs. Design combines an understanding of people, technology, society, and business. The production of beautiful objects is only one small component of modern design. Designers today work on problems such as the design of cities, of transportation systems, or health care.

Many companies have followed in Apple’s path, equating design with appearance while forgetting the fundamental principles of good design. This has resulted in programmers that rush code without having a comprehensive understanding of the target market. Designers focus entirely on aesthetics. User experience teams whose role is to holistically design products and ensure that products are usable before reaching the hands of the consumer, are becoming scarce skills within big design companies as the focus shifts to the aesthetic. Time spent on research, prototyping, and testing is being heavily neglected in development process. In reality, the prototyping process is an invaluable part of the development of a new product that has the potential to highlight issues prior to being released to the consumer.

Good design should be attractive, pleasurable, and wonderful to use. But the wonderfulness of use requires that the device be understandable and intuitive. It must follow the basic psychological principles that give rise to a feeling of understanding, of control, of pleasure. These include discoverability, feedback, proper mapping, appropriate use of constraints, and, of course, the power to undo one’s operations. These are all principles we teach elementary students of interaction design. If Apple were taking the class, it would fail.

The evidence I have gathered does not provide sufficient proof that Apple focuses exclusively on aesthetics and that the skills of user experience teams are being shunned. Evidence exists that illustrates that smaller companies have attempted to emulate Apple’s design style and philosophy, without acknowledging the fact that this style might not be fully accommodating the needs the of their consumers.

Global Design is already almost entirely made up of American companies, as previously explored, and the unregulated emulation of these companies worldwide potentially serves to enforce smaller companies being dependent on large powerful companies such as Apple.

Continuing on this trajectory has the potential to stifle vernacular design styles and methods based on the heritage and culture of a particular nation. Ultimately, we are allowing a tacit dependency on the decisions and tastes of a few powerful global companies in a top down design structure.

Conclusion

In conclusion, one can see a move towardws a culture of aesthetics at the expense of user experience, but also a pattern of imitation between dominant global designers and manufacturers at the expense of progressive and experiential design that is targeted for local users/ consumers. The creation of a Global Design product, means that one is predisposed to a preconceived method and style of design, contributing to the homogeneous look and feel of modern interface design. One must be aware that the design of large companies does not always translate appropriately to smaller companies with a more localised target market. The ‘one size fits all’ approach is not necessarily the best. When design becomes a statement, rather than a function, as it has become in Galobal Design, the fundamental rules of design itself are undermined. In addition, there is no such thing as a ‘real’ conclusion to the problems that this thesis has stated in the beginning. One can clearly see that a fusion between two languages, cultures and lifestyles can translate into a style of design that is both global and local, as seen in Dubai. As the world continues to experience globalisation at an exponential rate, we as designers can only hope that we will be able to retain a sense of cultural relativity in our work and that our styles do not fade away into Global Design.