What Design Wants
Designers sometimes confuse constraints and guidelines (what I’ve called enablers) for restrictions or limitations. They see the ideal scenario for doing design as having a well-defined problem with nothing to “hold back” their imagination.
This objection takes lots of different forms:
- “…hampers innovation…” (I’d be a genius if it weren’t for your pesky requirements.)
- “…cramps my style…” (I just cannot work in these conditions!)
- “…unique problem…” (My web site that sells a product is totally different from all those other sites that sell stuff.)
These objections imply that design wants freedom, that it is most successful when designers have no obligation other than to their imagination.
As far as I’m concerned, such objections comes from two possible places: Fear and Sloth.
- Reluctance to incorporate a new tool or technique may mean you’re too afraid or too lazy to learn it.
- Reluctance to confront a constraint or requirement may mean you’re too afraid or lazy to make the effort to figure it out.
But design thrives on constraint. In many ways, it wants and needs the opposite of freedom: it wants a clear definition of success, and it needs enablers.
So, when a designer tells you that their problem is unique or that they don’t want to hamper innovation, point out that they only think they want “more freedom.” Remind them what design really wants:
Inputs
“Can you tell me more about your customers?”
Great ideas come other ideas mixing together. Indeed, many of the great achievements of innovation come not from someone inventing something never before seen. They come from people combining existing ideas in ways we wouldn’t expect. If you’re looking for freedom, here it is: when designers are permitted to freely mix together concepts, insights, observations, they come up with the best ideas. But those inputs must come from somewhere, and deep familiarity with the domain, the audience, and the context is the best source.
So you should: do research, of any kind, and welcome any new insights or observations • stay on the look out for new approaches to old problems, or old approaches applied in new ways
Boundaries
“What does success look like?”
Whether you call them constraints, requirements, or guidelines, design processes all take time to establish boundaries. Design loves boundaries because they define success. If my product concept adheres to every constraint, requirement, and guideline, then I’m successful. Boundaries also help us understand risk, such that when we have to relax a requirement to make something work, we know what might go wrong. Finally, boundaries also give teams an opportunity to have interesting conversations. They can talk about relative importance or the strength of a particular constraint.
So you should: write down the project’s boundaries before you design anything • a simple list is as good as a diagram is as good as a big document • consider different kinds of boundaries, like problem statements, business requirements, design principles, design systems, research implications, and technical requirements.
Conflict
“Can you give me some feedback?”
Despite the negative connotation in English, conflict is essential to the design process. I call it the engine of design, and I define it as working toward a shared understanding. When people on the team have different understandings of a constraint’s importance or an insight’s implication, they need to fight it out. The intent here isn’t to have a winner and loser, but instead to work through an idea to ensure it is well understood by everyone on the team. Through critique, you might reject some ideas, but through that process have a better understanding of the constraints. You may reject multiple insights, only to arrive at new ones that better inform the design process.
So you should: share everything you learn with your teammates • take time to discuss your findings, gaining new insights through dialog • employ multiple channels to elaborate and evaluate insights and ideas • encourage productive collaborative behaviors for critique and feedback
It’s possible to abuse these fundamental ingredients of design, applying them indiscriminately. Boundaries can enable designers, but may be used to dismiss new ideas without deliberation. Conflict allows teams to elaborate and evaluate, but can descend into unhealthy personal disputes. Inputs offer valuable insights to fuel the design process, but teams can become distracted by irrelevant findings.
Reality check, designer-folk: Using and abusing tools, techniques, and insights comes with the territory. We do ourselves a disservice when we use tools and techniques without then reflecting on whether we could have done better. We do ourselves a greater disservice when dismissing these tools and techniques without even trying them, all because we our creativity be “unleashed”.
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