Napkin Technique Two: Three Things
In the first article in this series, I wrote about what a “napkin” is:
Everyone, in work or in life, has had someone kill their opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to a situation or a product by outlining a solution for them. This is getting a “napkin”. By employing 4th-order design thinking, we can start to think about the system in which we’re getting a napkin, and how to make that system better. By doing so, we can also make the situation or product better.
Getting a napkin can be crazy-making, frustrating, feel insulting or de-moralizing.
But it doesn’t have to be; there are some alternatives. Specifically, I proposed that it’s possible to empathize with the person who gave us the napkin (which may or may not take the form of a drawing, or a napkin, and isn’t specific to designers by any stretch), and that there are many ways to take at least one step back from the prototype (which is what a napkin is, by definition) to ideate, and perhaps go back even further in the design process.
Remember that the goal of empathizing and employing any of these techniques is to have the opportunity to contribute more meaningfully. (Empathizing may help keep you from losing your marbles, too.)
I posted my first proposed technique, “I Saw You Draw” already, and now it’s time for the second: “Three Things”, which is in some ways a build on the first.
Three Things
This is another deceptively simple technique that makes it easy to pull ideas from the napkin. When receiving it, simply ask a few questions:
Draw-er: Hey, I just sketched this over lunch with a few other P.M.s. We were thinking a mockup would be great to share in our next Executive Stakeholder meeting. And I knew you were just the gal to come to — can you work your magic on this? (Wiggles fingers, smiles suggesting this is genuinely meant as a compliment.)
Draw-ee: Sure, I’d be happy to take a look. Do you have a few minutes? Can I ask you a couple of questions about this?
Draw-er: Sure! (Of course what reasonable person could say no to that, even if you have to schedule the few minutes for some other time.)
Draw-ee: (Looking it over.) I see, this is very interesting. Can you tell me the three most important things about what you’ve drawn here?
Draw-er: Well, we heard from user research that people really love large photos, sorry I forgot to invite you to that, heh. So that’s why that’s there, kind of iTunes like, but that’s not the important part, just the size. Also, I know that having an easy way to compare cars helps people who don’t know which car they’re going to buy feel more confident about whatever the ultimately choose.
Draw-ee: Oh that’s good to know! How did you learn that?
Draw-er: Some desk research I did — I’d be happy to send you some of the most useful links. And the third is obviously the button to contact the dealer, especially since we saw a significant decline last quarter in revenue from sending leads to dealers.
(Now this is amazing! Look how much draw-ee learned about what was going on in the organization, on the research team, and in the industry. Also what’s important and what’s not. But now comes the design thinking part, gently and productively working backwards into ideation.)
Draw-ee: That’s really helpful, thank you. So do you mind if I explore this a little bit, for example, I could make one version that really emphasizes the images…
…And together, using the same medium, and also being conversational, you can come up with a lot of new ideas and suddenly you’re not just “sparkle-izing”, you’re designing! And over time, your draw-er is going to want you at those lunches, and want your ideas before there’s a napkin.
There are some good variations on this, probably a lot of them. A few we’ve employed:
- What three words would you use to describe what is happening here? (more ideating)
- If you had to pick one word or idea to focus on, which would it be? Do you think we can come up with three different ways to do that?
It works for people besides designers, too. For example, for the Communications Manager who gets asked to make a chart look pretty and then put it up on the web site, “Can you tell me the three most important things that you hope publishing this will do?” For the Aesthetician who has a list of instructions rattled off to her, “Can you tell me the three most important things you hope these will do for you?”
I’d love to hear other situations, and other “three things” questions that people have tried, or are planning to try, so please share in the comments!
Next up: Quick Concept Mapping.
