What working with kids has taught me about being a designer…
I’ve been mentoring at a weekend Design Club for 8–12 year olds in Dagenham. Here are six things I’ve learnt.
All our lives, as designers, we’ve been working two jobs and only one of them is what you’d expect. No one tells you about the other one, it’s something you take on unknowingly — it’s the role of an advocate. If you’ve been a designer for long enough, then I’m sure you’re familiar with it. You know how to ‘market’ your profession, the value it brings and why you chose it.
Talking about design
Different designers have unique ways of addressing the question of “So what exactly is (insert discipline here) design?”. In my experience, design is often written off as a frivolous subject or boxed within making things aesthetically pleasing. As a result of that, I have a tendency to be more academic in my answer to advocate its value.
At parties and social gatherings, I find myself narrating the same script over and over again, sometimes using complicated terminology to add more credibility to the profession. It’s safe to say, I know this script by heart and I can recite it in my sleep.
Teaching design thinking
In the past few months, to complete my MA in Service Design, I’ve been working on my major project. I wanted to look at embedding design behaviours and mindset in classrooms in the UK. When Design Club gave me the opportunity to teach design thinking to 8–12 year olds at Future Youth Zone, I was excited. Little did I know that the script I had so painstakingly memorised would not be applicable here.
What working with kids has taught me
1. Design is serious business. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun
Before I’m accused of trivialising the design profession, I should add that knowledge and research are important aspects of design, however, I feel curiosity, exploration, collaboration and other fundamental design behaviours can be nurtured through fun activities. At the heart of it all, it’s about being creative and shouldn’t creativity be fun?
The kids I teach aren’t there to ‘learn’ on a Saturday afternoon, they do that 5 days of the week. They don’t care about answering briefs and they don’t know all the right words, but they do have a LOT of ideas and the most infectious energy. So, while the academic approach works for adults, it loses engagement when it comes to kids. Conversations, games, competitions are all things that kids find fun and can help teach core design values.
How might we change our methodology to be flexible to our audience’s needs?
2. Improvisation is a lost art
Sometimes, even after imagining all possibilities of how a situation might play out, things might not go your way. As long as you know what you set out to achieve, don’t underestimate your ability to ‘wing it’. When put in a situation where you know your original plan won’t work and little beady eyes are staring up at you in anticipation of an unforgettable Saturday afternoon, I surprised myself with what I was able to concoct in just a few seconds. Responding to needs in real time might just be what the doctor ordered and if not, it will allow you to fail faster and get to your goal quicker.
Side note: Improvising can be scary, but it helps to have a feeling of safety and an environment of no judgement from the other mentors.
How might we build confidence to improvise and learn through failure?
3. Sophisticated language is overrated
At the end of one of the workshops, I asked my group what they learnt that day. A little boy of 8 years quipped — I learnt how to help others… The simplicity and the accuracy of this statement cannot be overlooked. In the simplest way he was able to capture the essence of what design is.
More questions like what it means to be a designer, what kind of jobs designers do and what is ‘empathy’ came up through the course of our sessions. My script wasn’t going to work here and it forced me to reflect and answer questions in a simpler way. I realised that we often get so used to certain terminologies that we forget that we might be excluding certain groups from the conversation completely.
How might we simplify design ‘language’ so that it’s more inclusive?
4. Listen to what your audience isn’t telling you
Kids don’t always articulate what they’re thinking, but they can show you through their actions. Just like amateur poker players, kids always have tells. Watch out for the hidden signals in the form of sighs and groans. Notice when they’re grouchy, restless or overly quiet. Map out behaviour and energy patterns so you can use them as feedback on your sessions. The more you get a grip on the non-verbal cues of your audience, the better you will get at adapting to their needs.
How might we consider non-verbal feedback into design iterations?
5. Let go of perfection
I am in a perpetual state of trying to make sense of the world. Going into a session with the expectation that the kids will do as I expected them to, is limiting myself to certain possibilities. I was trying to make sense of their ideas where I should’ve let them explore new areas where — perhaps — I wasn’t as comfortable. I learnt my lesson. I told the perfectionist in me to take a break, let go of some control and embrace ambiguity a bit more. There’s a lot more to learn when you let kids be kids because if you allow them, they will stretch your imagination.
How might we embrace ambiguity to build creative confidence?
6. Design is inherently collaborative — as are human beings
Thinking you can do ‘everything’ is setting yourself up for failure. Take all the help you can get — especially from those that can keep the energy of the room up. Kids play off different personalities and moods, sometimes it helps to break the monotony and have cheerleaders around who can engage them and are curious about their lives. These people are not designers and they don’t know the design process, but they understand children and their needs — observing them and leveraging their strengths helped elevate my delivery of the workshops.
How might we leverage other’s ability to elevate engagement and delivery to our audiences?
Final thoughts
If you asked me a year ago what my life would look like right now, working with kids would not have featured! Yet as I reflect on my learning, I am grateful and pleasantly surprised at my own growth through this whole process, and as I conclude this series of workshops, I must remember to thank the kids for a masterclass in design.
