Design everything.
…design refers to the will to interpret the meaning of human life and existence through the process of making things.
Design is something more and more people like to use to define something that looks pleasing to the eye. However design is much, much broader than that.
Every single thing we, as humans, create is designed.
Think about your coffee mug, your glass, the desk you might be sitting at, and the chair you are sitting on. Since all those objects are designed to be the way they are, the people making them had to make decisions during the creation process, that drastically influenced the final product. It is no different in software creation or any other process that ends up with a product.
Even simple plain text artefacts like emails or simple text messages can and should be designed. Using paragraphs to set a good reading tempo is just an example of that.
Companies are designed. Leaders at companies make decisions every day that shape the way organizations work and eventually perform. Ben Horowitz’s book has many chapters about design. Just a very specific form of it.
Since the outcome will be designed by definition it is very important to be aware of the potential implication a decision makes during the design process. Good designers will think about the likely and unlikely scenarios, the likely and unlikely impact an object is going to have on its surroundings and the emotions a design is going to generate.
Pay attention. Design everything. It matters.