Back to the paper: Screens? Where we’re going, we don’t need screens!

With everything slowly turning digital, is there still a place in the design industry for pen and paper? I would, and always will, argue yes!

As a product designer, I spend the majority of my life looking at a screen; drawing user flows, creating wireframes and perfecting pixels. But we’ve all been there when we can’t find our way out of a problem or an iterative rut. My solution to almost any creative block or hole I have dug myself into is going back to paper and pen.

When working on digital designs day-to-day you get used to making quick iterations during calls, but I often find myself making them high fidelity, if not an early version of a polished design. Getting out some paper and a nice sharpie, to draw scrappy, block wireframes can help you to quickly visualise a flow and spot where you’re tripping yourself up. Hand drawing your wireframes or flows will help to clear your mind and show you the logic behind both the UX and UI you’re hoping to achieve.

Not convinced? Let me state my case!

Here are five reasons you should try going back to pen and paper:

1. To stop your pixel pushing.
   This feels like a form of 1st world torture — you keep yourself blocked in a cycle of thinking about the same patterns in different variations because it’s a lot more effort to start a design from scratch. Pen and paper gives you the freedom to stretch those creative muscles and diverge again without touching the work you’ve done so far.
2. It’s the tool to depend on in a sticky spot.
   Someone needs a design yesterday but they only told you about it today (ah yes, that old chestnut). Don’t panic — the great thing about pen and paper is it can allow you to merge box and arrow user flows with rapid wireframes. This can speed up your process in the times you need it most, solidifying your logic and visual foundations from the get go.
3. It will give you the refresh you desperately need.
   You have a headache from the screen, your eyes are twitching from coffee and slack won’t stop knocking on your door. Pause those notifications, put your computer to sleep and pull out your secret weapons: your note pad and a fresh sharpie. We’re all busy and have big deadlines looming, but not everything has to be done on the computer, give yourself a break and try solving one of your problems with the old pen and paper — you might surprise yourself with the outcomes.
4. It can help to check if you found the best solution.
   Have you ever thought your design was air tight, only to present it to your team and be hammered with a thousand questions you never thought of? This is totally normal, as everyone thinks differently and might be prioritising different use cases to you. Take the feedback onboard, but instead of iterating on the design you presented, try starting from fresh, on a piece of paper, focusing solely on the problem statement and see if you end up in a different place or the same neighbourhood.
5. There is no better tool for Collaboration.
   If you want some outside opinions on how to approach solving a problem, nothing works like pen on paper and you could end up with triple the amount of ideas to try than you would when attempting it alone. It’s something pretty much everyone can do and can end up being cathartic for those that don’t often get the opportunity to be creative. Think of it similar to the exercise Crazy 8s in design sprints. By utilising different view points from the people you’re collaborating with, you may get design solutions that never would have occurred to you. You could of course present them your current design and explain your thoughts on how best to solve the problem, but here’s two reasons you might not want to:
   First: Stakeholders may hold back at a time you want them to open up. A quick sketch, as opposed to a final design, will allow everyone to stay in the creative space for longer, creating a safe space for people to comment and critique.
   Second: Design programs can be pretty intimidating to people that don’t use them everyday and editing a design often tends to be a one person job, which is likely to make you feel like you’re in an episode of the apprentice, with five people hovering over you, telling you to add or remove an apostrophe.

An example of an outcome from a crazy 8s exercise we completed as part of a design sprint.

The whole purpose of going back to the basics of pen on paper, is to give yourself and others the freedom and permission to make mistakes and try new wild ideas in a safe and non-critical environment.

So the next time you have an idea that might take you a while on Figma, I encourage you to reach past your mouse and grab a pen and paper, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain!