Primordial Goo and the Origins of Great UX
This is a story about working with goo — the primordial soup from which great UX so often emerges. How to mold it, shape it, and transform it into something great.
Every week, I help facilitate two design critiques (we call them ‘Circles’). Circles are 1–2 hour gatherings where designers and product managers share their latest designs, user testing results, and solicit feedback from their peers.
Circles are not only extremely productive, they’re also a lot of fun. We present, we discuss, we debate, we laugh — we even occasionally break into chanting (it creeps out the interns).
A few months back, however, a circle turned ugly.
Passionate debate degenerated into combative argument. People stopped listening and started talking over one another. Far from constructive and collaborative, the commentary became intensely negative and even hostile:
“What is this supposed to be? I don’t get it.”
“I don’t think you know what you’re designing.”
“This won’t work.”
What happened to our once joyful circle? And would it happen again?
Deconstructing Circle
Typically, we evaluate user-experiences in circle; that is, mock-ups or prototypes that describe a holistic solution to an established customer problem.
We ask probing questions like:
- Why did you select this UX pattern?
- What are you trying to convey with this copy?
- Can you explain the communication hierarchy of this page/email/whatever?
This method has proven effective for evaluating concrete elements like mock-ups or prototypes.
So why did it fail so catastrophically this time?
We had recently embarked on a greenfield project; something new and unfamiliar — even experimental. Something outside our comfort zone.
It was at this infamous circle that we had our first look at early explorations for this greenfield project. Far from a polished (let alone functional) user-experience, this was…something else entirely. Something squishy. Something primordial.
This was goo.
Goo is a hunch. A general approach. A sketch on a napkin. It is not a user-experience — it’s a puddle of slime that might someday evolve into a user-experience.
We didn’t know how to evaluate goo — and that’s what made circle turn ugly.
Someone offered up a fragile, quivering, vulnerable, puddle of goo — and we attacked it. Our standard probing questions quickly devolved into a relentless interrogation, which provoked an equally ferocious defense from the goo’s creator.
Our circle began its downward spiral.
My Hook Was a Lie
This is not a story about how to work with goo. This is a story of how not to work with it.
So…how do you work with goo?
Since this fateful circle, I’ve come up with four strategies that have proven effective:
1. See the Forest for the Goo
Simply recognizing that you’re dealing with goo — and not a design or user-experience — is an important first step.
Then, make sure everyone else knows, so there’s a collective understanding of the nature of the work.
2. Set Context, Show Context, Seek Context
Goo requires a lot more context than a design — nothing is self-evident or obvious about it. But establishing context is not just the responsibility of the creator, it is the collective responsibility of everyone involved in the critique.
Set context
Before showing a new concept, take the time to set context upfront. Try to answer each of the following questions:
- What problem are we solving?
- Why is this problem worth solving?
- What’s our hypothesis about how to solve it?
- What are we not trying to solve just yet?
The answers to these questions will help ground everyone in a common basis to properly evaluate your solution.
Show context
Once upfront context has been established, give the creator an opportunity to walk through their explorations, uninterrupted.
Our instinct is to start questioning (read: interrogating) and providing low-level feedback immediately. But that’s a waste of time — individual design decisions just aren’t relevant yet. We need to focus on the big picture.
Seek context
No matter how much time someone spends establishing context, it still may be unclear to you. You may still be missing something. Our natural tendency is to make assumptions to fill the gaps in our understanding. And again, this is reasonable when you’re dealing with a design — but not with goo.
We have to fight our inclination to assume and then critique based on those assumptions, because they’re probably wrong. Instead, we need to actively seek to understand — to be genuinely curious and ask questions before passing judgment or suggesting an alternative.
3. Critique, then Question
When design thinkers are presented with a solution, they often start by questioning the underlying problem; challenging it, redefining it, proposing a different problem altogether that’s worth solving instead.
But when you’re dealing with goo, sometimes the creators aren’t totally confident in the problem themselves. It’s so early in the design process that we’re actually validating both the problem and solution together.
So again, we have to fight our reflexive response and instead start by evaluating the solution at face value. That is, assuming the problem is both real and worth solving, how well does the solution presented solve it?
Once we’ve done that, it’s completely reasonable to challenge the problem. But skipping the first part is prematurely dismissive of the work presented — and it’s all too easy to do when you’re dealing with goo.
4. It’s Not Precious.
Finally, primordial doesn’t mean precious. Just because it’s goo doesn’t mean it can only be coddled and praised.
It’s not above reproach — it’s just a bit messy, so we have to be a bit more patient.
How Do You Goo?
What are your strategies for working with goo? It’s a tricky substance so I’d love to hear what works for you, and what doesn’t.
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