Designers Working with a Visionary
Small things I’ve learned
I’ve participated in several design/development hack-a-thons and have fiercely enjoyed each and every one. I just went to the pre-planning meeting for Design Like Mad, and as I sit reflecting on it, I’ve seen a common theme- it’s tough for a designers and developers to work with a visionary in a time constricted setting.
The preplanning meeting goes like this:
Founder: “Our vision is to create good vibes in the community and replicate ultimately across the world- the world should know of the good that is going on. We think there’s good out there in people and we want to recognize that. We have been working on something to help people recognize the good things out there and now we want an app. The app should do this, and this, and this, and also we have this great idea from youtube that should also be in there.”
And this is how the Designers & Developers feel:
Because more often than not, a hack-a-thon is more than just putting an app or website out there — you, designers and developers, are making the mission.
Brief reminder on these definitions:
- Vision is the expected outcome — it is future looking, it describes.
- Mission is the action taken — it is the present, it is what you do.
So how do we take this visionary’s vision and make it into a mission that is implemented through a website or app?
1. Start Diagramming
Your visionary has often only been dealing in words. They present pitches and presentations to others to bring them on board, ask for grants, etc. Their words motivate and inspire, but they don’t build products or systems. It’s time to start building flow charts. As they speak, start drawing boxes.
This was so crucial at my Design Like Mad meeting. Our visionary had brought wireframes with flows to illustrate his beginning thoughts on the app. Because apps are typically one way — not an interaction between two people, he had thought through just the side of the person who had the app on their phone — the Giver, and not the person they were also talking with, the Receiver.
As he spoke, I started drawing a swim lane diagram showing the full interaction. When I came to place where something seemed wrong, he could gloss over it with words in a presentation, but faced with the diagram, we could start to see some holes in the mission they had arrived with.
2. Set aside what’s not fitting
What I love about visionaries is their abundance of ideas. I am always astonished by how what can seem like rambling can unfurl into a pearl of an idea that couldn’t have been without the tangle that came before.
But sometimes it’s tough to find that pearl, and your visionary is reluctant to set things aside. Hopefully, your diagramming has generated discussion, which leads into what needs to stay and what needs to go. Zone back in on their vision and ask if there’s anything on the table that doesn’t fit into it perfectly.
At our meeting, our visionary showed us a different activity they were doing — organizing “Real Libraries” events. He wanted us to incorporate the videos from the event into the app. While a great idea and these events had their place within the vision, we just couldn’t see how it fit into the app’s mission of how it fulfilled the vision.
It’s not just for hackathons
As I think about other experiences I’ve had, these practices aren’t just for hack-a-thons. The time constraint adds some urgency to working through these, but these are things you should always be doing as you begin to build a mission.
Do you have other thoughts on what it takes to work well with a visionary? I’d love to hear them.
Ashley Crutcher is a UX Designer at InterVarsity located in Madison, WI. She tweets at @ashleyspixels and enjoys cuddling with her cat, crocheting, working out, and thinking too much about everything.
