The clients who do get it will invite the design team to their production meetings; they'll include us on key decisions (for example, "should we have feature x?"), and they'll expect us to contribute to the overall product, NOT just in design, but also in functionality.
The clients that don't get it? You get a stack of content and a list of demands, along with phrases (that we now use freely around the office) like "jazz it up" and "make it more FUN!" Those are the clients that think great designers are found on Dribbble and that my team always needs to be "pushed" to produce "fun, exciting, INNOVATIVE" design. In reality, we just take our effective, well-executed design and practically roll the dice to see which Dribbble style du jour we can slap on it.
So, in a kind of weird way, Dribbble makes my job a lot easier in terms of showing me how to make my work shittier so that it's accepted by dumbass clients. For that, I am thankful.
Just because some designers on Dribbble choose to focus on visuals doesn't mean that they haven't mastered the other components of design as well.
Dribbble and similar sites like Behance are great to evaluate visual design. For other components, you have other media (writing, videos, case studies, etc.) Why can't we just leave it at that instead of acting like this is somehow Dribbble's own fault?
I think the divide in the design industry is going to be short lived as companies start to realize that they don't really need a a graphic designer, a product designer, a UI designer and a UX strategist. They need one (or several) competent designer that can understand all of these roles.
I wrote a short blog post discussing the issue: http://generalist.io/designers-design
My preference for a product team structure is this: Interaction designer (product manager), art director, front-end developer, back-end developer(s)
I read your post. UX designers that "scoff at the visual design because that’s not part of their job" drive me crazy, too. In my opinion, outside of a one person design department, an interaction designer need not be able to create Dribbble worthy visual design, but they should absolutely have a strong understanding of layout, hierarchy, grids, color theory, etc.
These people are far outnumbered by the graphics designers who simply upgraded their resume to add UX and yet cannot name any of the main roles of that position.
Interaction and visual design roles are separated not because the division is natural, but because visual and interaction design require specific skills that are rare to find both in individuals, especially on the visual side (interaction designers have diverse backgrounds, while visual designers require specific training).
One of the worst things for me as a developer is having deal with "designers" who don't know this. They think they produce a flashy looking mockup and then they're done. I've dealt with design or marketing companies who literally produce a few PSDs and say, "This should do something cool when you click on it." Which then makes me the designer. Which, I mean, I'm flattered, but that's probably not the situation the client intended to be in.
You are forced to make a conscious effort not to focus on looks to finally focus on how it works. You are better off without looks.
I've heard of a usability study that found people are afraid to interact with pretty websites. They prefer ones that look simpler. I wish I could find a reference and read it myself.
The worst of the misconceptions here is that the designer is unable to see further than this point, it's basically a key to failure.
Come up with a low-friction, high-speed way to share other facets of design, like interaction and information hierarchies, and then the macro-discussion will reach further into those areas. Currently the best medium for this is launching a prototype in an app store or web and publishing it around. You can see how this compares to "uploading a png" to understand the downstream effects.
"Hey man, can you add a little design flair to this?"
Fuck that shit. Our job is more than "make things pretty". Designers should have input on every step in the product cycle, not slap a coat of paint on a project that wasn't designed properly from the beginning.
I've been asked numerous times to fix this or that interface, and implement said design changes (since I'm also a developer). This requires me to set up a dev environment for said project, get fully caught up on the project, constraints, etc, then navigate my way through the code and actually make said changes (without breaking anything on the backend, because as a developer it'll be my job to fix that too).
Going back and making a "band-aid" style fix can take almost an entire day, when it could have been a 5-minute discussion during the planning phase.
Oh, and to top it all off: our graphic artist sits in on those meetings.
Apparently this is the norm.
Looking further into it there are a lot more to consider and more important points such as UX and interaction. I agree that UX and interaction is important but didn't realise it is that highly rated.
Do not confuse graphic arts or even graphic design with product design.
