How becoming a designer made me a better writer
Like so many career paths, mine too took a surprising turn. Although I can no longer imagine myself working in any other field, I’ve not always wanted to be a designer. Leaning towards humanistic topics as a teenager, I somehow also knew my brain lacks the grit of an artist. As lost as a person this age gets, I got fascinated with obscurity and eventually ended up diving into Samuel Beckett. And after discovering his “Lessness”, I got inspired for life.
He took art and algebra, two almost conflicting disciplines, and combined them together to come up with a totally innovative way of writing. The piece has exactly 60 sentences, 12 paragraphs, 144 words, which can be mixed and matched to a variety of different constellations, offering new possibilities and uncovering new meanings.
Crossing the boundaries of one field in order to enrich another — that’s what’s truly fascinating to me. Design and writing, my two big passions, how could they co-exist?
Structure
In the past, I would never even think of structuring my writing. I’d let it find its ways, convinced that what’s creative, has to flow freely. Until I learnt about the hanging bridge metaphor.
Imagine yourself on the edge of a very steep cliff. It’s so high, you can barely see anything below, a spooky mist covering the ground. You have to get to the other side and there’s a hanging bridge. You notice though that the bridge has no barriers, its floor hanging free above the abyss. Time for you to get creative in the journey — go! Now, imagine there were barriers… to your creative endeavour. Perhaps at first sight they’d seem like constrains but after a while of calm, steady, supported walking you realise it’s much easier this way. The fear diminishes, you walk upright, maybe even leaning on the stable barrier, regain courage to peek down.
The structure of a text, as much as a solid design process, is of paramount importance if the goal (or a punch line!) is to be reached. The constraints of certain business goals, limited resources or unforeseen requirements might boost your creativity in surprising ways. Stay open, stay on track!
Iteration
The bridge metaphor was first introduced to me during my apprenticeship in kids therapy. A lot of questions about human development occupied my mind at that time, but one has always bugged me more than others: How do we learn?
How do we get better at things — be it emotion management, solution making, or compelling writing. Not surprisingly, there’s no clear answer (unless “it depends” sounds clear enough to you). But could design give us clues?
There’s no good design without iteration, as much as there’s no good piece of writing without proofreading it. In much the same way, there is no learning without repetition. The cycle: create-test-learn-repeat is, therefore, not only the best design practice but also simply a great technique that supports continuous growth. What’s extra cool about it is that you almost most certainly end up adding more ideas, since your mind is now freed from the burden of the initial crafting. And even more important: the best kind of iteration is usually done with other people.
Feedback
Writing is in general a very lonely activity. In the past, I’d show it to people for one single reason: to show it. That’s it, that’s all there was to it. Emotionally connected to every word, I would take offence if anybody suggested a change. I wanted to get my message through, but not really listen to what people have to say about it.
What an epic recipe for disaster.
Imagine a designer like that — nobody would ever want to work with them! Number one skill of every UX-er (be it UX designer, UX writer, or UX researcher) is to receive feedback. Simple. Without another pair of eyes, different perspective, and — most of all — user scalpel-sharp feedback, there’s no way your solution will fully satisfy stakeholders’ needs. Instead of keeping your piece in a drawer, show it. Why not assume others must know something I don’t? Why not assess it together like as if it was a piece of something that’s not me, that’s not mine, that’s simply by default imperfect?
I’m not here to tell you ego has no place in design — if you feel strongly about your project, repressing is never a healthy way out. Instead, try to influence your mindset with the following technique:
Give it time to rise like dough
Companies busy with revenues rarely wait with shipment. We all know that every project would be better if it was ready yesterday. And yet, I would invite you to consider the idea of leaving your designs to sit there, in your Figma file, untouched, unlooked at, unreviewed — for just a few days.
While the dough is rising, your eyes rest from effort, your memory frees up space for better processing, your ego distances itself. You come back to it after awhile and magically — just by the sheer fact of passing the time — you become your own critic. You read your piece and you know exactly what works and what doesn’t. With this newly recharged energy, you correct & switch things around. It suddenly becomes Solution 2.0 and the third iteration has never felt so seamless.
I do that same thing with writing. First, I spit out all I have in mind, without putting too much effort in quality just yet. Then, I come back to it after some time, revisiting rusty sentences, correcting spelling mistakes, replacing words with their sexier synonyms. The piece becomes more lively, more dynamic, its rhythm becomes a cherry on top.
Closure
Do I feel I’m a great writer? Nope. Do I feel I’m doing my best to improve? Yup. And that’s all that matters. Those short moments in between projects, when you give yourself time to stop & reflect are what pushes you to get better in whatever you do.
In this article, I tried to structure some of my reflections into paragraphs, mostly to organise it better in my own head. Proofread several times & showed it around to gather feedback. Before publishing, I left it untouched and revisited a week later.
And what do you think about bridging some of these design practices with other fields? Check out this article by my talented colleague Chiara Angori & get inspired with her own interdisciplinary story! And maybe you have a similar experience we could all learn from? Let us know in the comments!
Or contribute directly…
… by applying & joining our awesome team in Berlin, Paris, or Milan! Don’t wait for Godot, put it into practice & hit the link now 🔥
