UX design
Designs what it is like to use a digital product, so it is useful, easy to understand, and pleasant.
Specialties: UX strategy, Information architecture, Form design, Search design
Disciplines
What each discipline designs and the ideas each one has created.
Digital and product
Digital products, interfaces and interactions.
Interaction design
Designs how a product responds to what the person does: actions, feedback and behavior.
UI design
Designs what the person sees and touches on a screen: controls, text, hierarchy and states.
Specialties: Web design, Mobile app design
Product design
Designs whole digital products and decides with product and engineering what to build and how to measure it.
Specialty: Wearable design
AI design
Designs how we use, understand and correct products powered by artificial intelligence.
Conversational design
Designs conversations with systems, such as voice assistants and chatbots, so they feel natural.
Specialty: Voice UX
Inclusive design
Designs so that as many people as possible can use something, starting from those left out.
Specialties: Accessible design, Design for children
Computational design
Designs with computational processes: rules, data and simulations that generate and evaluate forms.
Specialties: Algorithmic design, Generative design
Research and content
Researching, writing and organizing information.
Design research
Researches with people to understand their reality before designing, and makes sense of what it finds.
Specialties: UX research, ResearchOps
Information design
Organizes and presents information so it is understood and used well: charts, signs, instructions.
Specialties: Data visualization, Data storytelling
Content design
Decides what content people need and in what form, based on what they need to do.
Specialties: Content strategy, UX writing
Visual, graphic and brand
Visual communication, identity and image.
Graphic design
Arranges images, type and space to communicate a message to a specific audience.
Specialties: Typography, Art direction, Type design
Brand design
Designs how an organization or a product is recognized and remembered.
Specialty: Brand identity design
Editorial design
Designs books, magazines and newspapers, in print and on screen, so they read well.
Specialty: Digital publishing
Illustration
Creates images that inform, explain, tell stories or persuade.
Motion design
Designs how what we see on screen moves: titles, brands, audiovisual pieces and interfaces.
Specialties: Title design, Motion branding, Audiovisual design, UI motion design
Packaging design
Designs a product’s packaging, which protects it, makes it stand out in the store and is used at home.
Environmental graphic design
Designs the graphic communication of a place: signs, lettering, graphics and themed décor.
Specialty: Wayfinding design
Physical, spatial and experience
Objects, spaces, services and experiences.
Service design
Designs the complete experience of a service: what the person sees and what makes it possible.
Specialties: Service environment design, Service innovation, Service design research
Industrial design
Designs mass-produced objects: how they work, how they are used and how they look.
Experience design
Designs what a person goes through and remembers when using something, starting with the reason to use it.
Specialties: Fan experience, Employee experience design, Customer experience design
Interior design
Designs interior spaces so they work, are pleasant to live in and convey what they should.
Specialty: Lighting design
Fashion design
Designs garments and accessories: from fabric and shape to the collection that reaches people.
Specialties: Textile design, Costume design
Spatial design
Designs how people experience and move through a space, indoors or outdoors.
Specialties: Retail design, Scenography
Game design
Designs the rules and challenges of a game so that playing it creates the intended experience.
Exhibition design
Tells a story in space with objects, texts, images and a path through them.
Sound design
Designs the sounds of a product, an interface or a place.
Multisensory design
Designs for all the senses at once, not just sight: what is seen, heard, touched and smelled.
Strategic and organizational
Strategy, organizations, systems and society.
Strategic design
Uses design to help an organization decide where to go and how to adapt.
Specialty: Design-driven innovation
Sustainable design
Designs with the environmental and social impact of what is produced in mind, from start to finish.
Systemic design
Brings together systems thinking and design to intervene in complex social problems.
Social design
Uses design to address social needs and support community-led innovation.
Behavioral design
Designs products, services and policies based on how we actually behave.
Design management
Organizes design within a company: teams, processes, budget and its link to strategy.
Specialties: DesignOps, Design leadership
Business design
Applies design to how an organization creates value, delivers it and makes money from it.
Organizational design
Designs how an organization works inside: structure, processes, incentives and people.
Design for policy
Applies design to creating and improving public policy, based on citizens' experience.
Specialty: Civic design
Futures
Imagining, exploring and debating possible futures.
Design futures
Uses design to make possible futures tangible and debate which one we want.
Specialties: Speculative design, Design fiction, Experiential futures, Critical design
Transition design
Designs to drive long-term societal change toward more sustainable futures.
Applied to a field
Defined by the field in which they are applied.
Design for health
Applies the design of products, services, spaces and communication to caring for health.
Learning design
Designs activities, materials and environments so that people learn.
Legal design
Applies human-centered design to law, so that contracts and legal procedures can be understood.
Food design
Brings food and design together: what we eat, how it is served and how we experience eating.