What does it mean to think like a designer?

One big part of what a designer is depends not on her skills but more importantly on the ways she approaches the design challenge.

What dawned upon me after putting my developer career aside and shifting into design were the ways of thinking — the mindsets — that no longer applied to my day to day job.

This should be about designer mindsets so let's only talk about two.

It's not done until you can prove it works

As a developer you might initially think that after you punched in the final line of code and ran it for the first time without errors your job is done. Proving what you built works by writing all kinds of tests helps deliver solutions that would be many levels above the average. And I'm not talking only about a particular test type (unit, integration, etc.). What I'm referring to is the way of thinking about how you can prove that what you've created works.

Troubleshooting

How you think about isolating the issue? Learning to tweak the environment one variable at a time while observing the effect is immensely helpful. And not just in programming. Try to figure out why the light does not turn on when you press the switch ;)

There were many more — from the way how to break down a problem, analyse it and create an algorithm to solve it — to the appreciation for interfaces.

What does this have to do with design, you might ask.

Designer's mindset

Based on my experience the same applies in design. These fundamental characteristics define the ways of thinking — or mindsets — at the core of what makes someone a good designer.

Let me put down the ones we used as a basis for our interaction design programme at UXWell. This is by no means an exhaustive list and your feedback and comments are welcome and appreciated :)

Curious

Not afraid to ask “Why”. Looks at the world with beginner's eyes. There is an old “lightbulb” joke that when twisted can help explain this better and it goes like this …

How many designers do you need to change a lightbulb?

That's an interesting question. Why do you ask?

Critical to dogma

Challenges established ways of thinking. As technology is progressing faster that we think our methods should too. Clinging on what there was might not help.

Thinks in hypotheses

You will rarely know something for sure. That cannot deter you from coming up with a solution or concept. Being comfortable with ambiguity is what will help you move forward.

Staying with the jokes. There's another “lightbulb” one I put together to illustrate this …

How many designers do you need to change a lightbulb?

It depends …

Sense of process

Design is not a random set of activities. It's a repeatable set of steps. Each designer should build her own internal sense of process. And develop this understanding seeing how that process fits the environments she's in.

Revolution brings a new set of unknown issues

Sometimes it might be sensible to flush the whole design down the drain. Especially very early on. Ideas are cheap, so have as many as you can.

Later on when people already use your flawed creation you might become seduced by the idea that completely re-designing could improve the situation. Knowing that this creates a new set of issues you're not aware of is extremely helpful.

Just enough design

The old saying “It's perfect when there's nothing more to remove” should guide your mental pencil whenever you put it down on paper.

How do we instill these mindsets?

We don't know for sure. But we're trying to figure it out.

In UXWell, we're on purpose exposing new designers to activities that mimick what we've been going through ourselves. Trying to facilitate epiphanies — moments of understanding that gradually change one's personal view of the world. We're on the lookout for techniques that help.

Let's discuss this at IxD Education Summit!

Mindsets are only one of the topics I'd like to discuss with the great people that came to the Summit. The latest page in my notebook hints at the rest :)

Looking forward to talking to you!