[wpietri]

Yes! I have a beef with the notion of "design" as a role. It's a thinker/doer split, which is inherently problematic. Software creation is almost entirely design activity; it's just enough different sorts of design that we need a team to be able to do them all well.

For me, design artifacts are a way to communicate and a way to prime the pump so that you can start iterating in the real medium and getting real-world feedback. For both uses I'm alway seeking the minimum amount of investment in design artifacts, because as soon as the real product is live and in use, the artifacts are all candidates for recycling.