We’re digging into a sharp article by @caoimghgin, Why Engineers Can Say “This Is Wrong” and Designers Can’t. His argument is straightforward (and probably uncomfortable for many…) design work stalls because design decisions are not tied to clear, shared standards. When decisions cannot be proven right or wrong, feedback turns into opinions, meetings drag on, and nothing actually gets decided.
Very direct. With a hint of “we’ve been here before.”
And that’s his point. This isn’t new. Massimo Vignelli argued that design professionalism depends on three things: history, theory, and criticism. Engineering has all three. Its decisions are documented, its frameworks are shared and reused, and its review processes resolve disagreement. Design walked away from those foundations and called it progress.
Your prescription is equally blunt. If designers document the reasoning behind decisions the same way engineers do, critiques become actionable, disagreements resolve faster, and teams can move forward.
Let’s jump into the discussion
This leads us to your most practical advice. Skip the kickoff and alignment meetings. Build something small, make a real decision, and show it to someone who needs it. Process changes that already work get adopted.
If it sticks, it spreads. If not, you only lost an afternoon.
So here’s the question I want to dig into with you: why do you think design got stuck in a game of generating ideas that require approval instead of decisions that carry weight?
Let’s have some fun with Kevin Muldoon, a new Glare author, and dive into this thorny topic!
