The Ever-Increasing Pace of Change

One Section in Don Norman’s article Being Analog really hit home. In the section “The Ever-Increasing Pace of Change” he talks about the quickness of change throughout our society. From work to sports to education, one is no longer able to pick up on their surrounds merely by observing and exploring. He talks about the amount of education that is required today. No longer can one simply graduate high school and expect to be successful. Businesses will rarely consider you today for a job if you don’t have a college degree. And speaking directly from experience, even an under-graduate degree won’t cut it in today’s society.

Norman states “Scientists no longer are able to keep up with advances even within their own field, let alone in all of science. As a result, we are in the age of specialization, where it is all one person can do to keep up with the pace in some restricted domain of endeavor. But with nothing but specialists, how can we bridge the gaps?”

I chose to go back to grad school because I noticed that businesses need specialist. You cannot be just a graphic or web designer and expect to get a job. You have to have a specialized skill that will set you apart from the crowds. Recently while I was job hunting, I noticed that most jobs expect you to be able to handle a large number of responsibilities on top of being some sort of digital specialist. This is a frustrating realization, but this is the reality of our time. With digital replacing everything that was once analog and simple, we, as designers, need to bust our asses to stay afloat in this ruthless world.

Working in such a digital realm, it is crucial to understand the world around us. This forces us out of our comfort zones as analog beings it pushes us into this new territory. Two quotes from Norman sums this new territory up: “The real problem with being digital is that it implies a kind of slavery to accuracy…” and “People do best with signals and information that fit the way they perceive and think, which means analogous to the real world. Machines do best with signals and information that is suited for the way they function, which means digital, rigid, precise.” I feel that designers are forced to become digital beings, even if we are not completely comfortable stepping away from a more analog world. We must learn to adapt this new way of thinking and living or else we will not be able to survive in the world of design.