Reframing — or why do designers keep tilting their heads?
How metaphors influences us in our everyday lives and how to shake off entrenched ways of looking at things using the reframing method.
Reframing is very much in the spirit of user-centred action.
True to the motto:
“Every behaviour makes sense if you know the context.”
Our behaviours and assumptions when looking at situations has been intriguing me for many years. We User Experience (UX) designers look at a use case, put our heads together, tilt our heads, take a step back, or narrow our eyes to slits. This happens subconsciously and automatically without us noticing. And why do we do this? Because this helps us see things from a different perspective! In technical jargon, we engage in reframing.
But reframing is not reduced to external perception and changing the direction of vision. No, this topic is far more multifaceted. By changing our perspective, we change our existing framework of interpretation, or even one’s own perception is improved by allowing the view from “outside” to flow in, as the founders of Simplease.at and authors of Wie User Experience wirklich funktioniert (How user experience really works), Stefan Rössler, Markus Pirker, Mathias Placho, Andreas Riedmüller, describe in their book.
From reframing back to the origin of the “framing effect”.
Every piece of information triggers a certain image in the recipient, activates a certain switch or even a specific area in the brain. These frames of interpretation differ depending on the recipient, because each person draws on their own experiences and is shaped by their individual memories.
For the first time, the two psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman systematically investigated and described the influence of framing on our decision-making. In the book The Essential Tversky (by Tversky), Tversky devotes himself entirely to the topic of framing and how positive and negative framing can influence the way a statement works. Daniel Kahneman refers to the joint work of the two in his later work Thinking, Fast and Slow (2013) receives the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work with Tversky.
Today we know that some metaphors trigger similar emotions in certain user groups. Advertising as well as politics and the media take advantage of these emotions in a positive as well as in a negative sense.
For example, the statement “in a few steps” activates the area of the brain that is responsible for movement and conveys to the recipient that they are making rapid progress. This is a popular form of a frame and quite a harmless use , as long as — from the user experience point of view — the recipient reaches their goal quickly, easily and satisfactorily, as was implied. Announcements that are not fulfilled and do not lead the user to their goal, instead lead to frustration and ensure that the memory associated with the process remains tainted. We UX designers want to avoid this at all costs.
We people here in Germany are all familiar with the expression “wave of refugees”, in which a negative frame of interpretation is deliberately activated. “Wave” is a synonym for an unstoppable threat.
But when we speak of “people seeking help”, a completely different and much more social frame is activated in our minds.
So framing is a very powerful and effective communication tool and we should always ask ourselves, both as senders and receivers, what is being triggered and activated by these language frames.
A study conducted by cognitive scientists Lera Boroditsky and Paul Thibodeau in 2010 shows how the same message phrased differently can trigger different behaviour. In order to reduce the high crime rate in the fictitious city of Addison, around 1500 students were asked for possible solutions. The students were divided into two groups and presented with texts containing the same facts but using different metaphors for the concept of “crime”.
The first group’s text used the metaphor:
“Crime is an animal that ravages the city of Addison.”
The second group’s text was based on the metaphor:
“Crime is a virus that ravages the city of Addison.”
The group that was influenced by the metaphor of crime being a beast proposed a solution that included enforcing the laws more strictly, building more prisons and even adding the National Guard — whereas the group that was influenced by the “crime as a virus” metaphor proposed to reform education and the health care system as well as to fight poverty.
A summary also described very informatively by the National Geographic in its article: “Is Crime a Virus or a Beast? — How metaphors shape our thinking and our decisions.”
Especially under the current challenges of the Covid 19 pandemic, I think it’s important to change perspectives, to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and to develop empathy for those responsible, the decision-makers and those affected. After all, we are all pursuing the same goal: to get through this crisis together and in good health.
We often criticise and condemn hastily
Many of us know this from everyday life: when people do something that annoys us, we often criticise and condemn hastily. We do this even when we know next to nothing about their reasons. What if we put ourselves in their shoes instead? What if we tried to think of a reason that could explain their behaviour?
For example, when I get annoyed with a driver who drives too slowly in front of me, I imagine that he is driving carefully because he is transporting a wedding cake to the wedding venue. Even though the probability of this being true is vanishingly small, this thought instantly relaxes me. Just knowing that there is a context in which this behaviour makes sense is enough for me to develop a certain degree of empathy.
We need to develop empathy!
And this is where we come to the positive effects of the reframing method to develop user-centered solutions. We need to know and understand our users, develop empathy! This opens our minds. And this is how I bridge to the reframing method in my work environment.
Reframing in the UX process
User research and reframing are closely linked. We imagine ourselves in the user’s place to find user-centred solutions. In which frame do I have to look at a topic, in which context of use is my person? How can I use creative methods to expand the framework and develop innovative solutions?
It’s not always easy to change the direction of vision.
A beautiful and very creative way to jump out of the fixed frames is visualised by the card set “CREATIVE SESSIONS — 96x Kribbeln im Kopf” by Mario Pricken and Christine Klell. It provides playful support to free oneself from ingrained beliefs and assumptions and to break down unwritten laws and myths. Working with it is fun and lively.
During my reframing research, I was repeatedly led back to the book “Think Outside the Frame” by Mario Pricken.
He describes very clearly how, for example, reframing can be used to turn a weakness into a strength, to turn a warning signal into a seal of approval (Made in Germany was not always as positive as many of us think) and how we can use creative techniques such as the inversion technique, zooming in and out, to set the right detail and thus the special focus.
Reframing is omnipresent!
Take, for example, digitalisation:
Many people see digitalisation as a threat. Our job is to convince our customers that digitalisation is an unstoppable opportunity for process optimisation and facilitation, and that people will not be “digitised away “ — or economize, but will instead be able to concentrate on new tasks such as special customer service.
Someone who manages to successfully frame digitalisation as a positive development is my favourite motivator Dietmar Dahmen. In one of his gripping talks, he conveys that digitalisation does not make people pointless, but that progress gives us more time for humanity. The keynote linked here is from 2016 and still topical, but held in German. But he has also given many in English,- and all of them are spectacular. I recommend watching one of his motivational keynotes before any Visions workshop.
To me, reframing also means a fresh start to be allowed to shake off old ways of looking at things. Through creative methods in workshops with the client and all those involved in the process, we broaden our view and change our perspective. Time and again the defensive attitude turns into euphoria when everyone pulls together and these are real goosebump moments. When we work on a common vision with interdisciplinary; when marketing managers sit at the same table with technicians, engineers as well as management assistants and developers and formulate their respective perspectives on a common goal, then we are actively reframing: each of us is forced to perceive, empathise with and get to know the other person’s point of view.
So many “BAAAM” effects are created here and together we agree on the one strategy that each of us identifies with and wants to continue.
We break down a big picture into many individual parts, scrutinize and make the connections of meaning visible, play them out and put ourselves in the role of the respective users. Even if some of the ideas generated are dreams for the distant future, we continue to think, rethink and reconsider. At launch, not all of our insights end up in the first product, but we can draw from a large, cooperatively generated pool of ideas and have developed a strong shared vision.
And that’s what it’s all about: the jointly generated vision. Pulling together to be motivated to develop the product further. Because we have defined goals for the future, we are allowed to incubate, to think ahead, to fall back to them again and again in our daily work and to generate new ideas. To me, thinking ahead is particularly valuable, because:
good products are not simply born, they are constantly evolving!
I hope this article was exciting and interesting for you. I look forward to your feedback!
What experience do you have? Do you use reframing in your everyday life? How does reframing influence you in your work?
Stay and be empathetic!
Meike Thöne
