Roll for Innovation: How Dungeons and Dragons makes me a better Product Designer
The tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), is a game of possibilities, and when you get stuck between a sentient rock and a hard place, you need to get creative to make it out alive. Thinking outside the box is not only encouraged but often the only way to move forward.
As a Product Designer with a well-developed D&D practice, it struck me that designing draws upon many of the skills and thought processes I have already honed in the game.
Here’s how:
Getting into character
Dungeons and Dragons requires players to embody characters who live vastly different lives from themselves. These characters have their own unique personalities and experiences. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never really lost a friend to a fire-breathing dragon, I still need to empathize with my character’s motivation for redemption.
These exercises in empathy have proven useful in helping me connect with design personas. It can be a challenge to identify with users as people when they are presented as tokens in a journey map.
It was also challenging initially to ensure my design decisions were not based on rationale that made sense only to me in my context of the problem. It’s key as a designer to recognize your bias and ‘remove yourself’ as needed.
When problem solving in the game, I must continually ask myself whether an action is something my character would come up with or whether I’m inserting myself. There are times in the game when I as the player know more than my character, but I must act as if I don’t to keep the narrative balanced.
Lessons in Problem Solving
Early in my career, it was all too easy to chase after the first, most obvious solution to a design problem. As time went on, I learned to consider the user and fully understand the context of the problem before making a move.
In D&D, traps are commonplace, and it only takes a few times falling for them to understand that the obvious solution might not be the best. I quickly learned to consider all of the tools available to my character and to fully investigate the puzzle. I learned to pause and make decisions based on all the information before me, instead of rashly pulling the not-at-all-suspicious lever in a seemingly empty room.
This careful skepticism carried over to my day-to-day work. When framing a problem or ideating on a design challenge, I drew on the practice of looking at the entirety of the problem and considering all possible implications before jumping straight into solutioning.
Don’t get me wrong, you can definitely still spend too much time going down different rabbit holes of possibilities (Been there, done that far too often). However an attitude of “proceeding with caution” can go a long way to helping find solutions that you might have otherwise overlooked. They may not all be winners, and the obvious solution might ultimately be the chosen solution, but you won’t know that until you look at the entire picture.
Collaboration is key
Junior Product Designers: You also don’t have to solve every problem by yourself! Just like a well-rounded adventuring party, to succeed as a designer you need to surround yourself with a diverse set of players by way of designers, developers, and other stakeholders. Different team members have different experiences and bring alternate views. Working collaboratively allows us to draw upon each other’s past wins and losses without needing to experience them ourselves.
You won’t get very far in D&D if you try to do everything on your own. Each class of character has different strengths and weaknesses. Your Fighters and Barbarians do explosive damage in battles, your Clerics keep everyone in fighting shape, and your Bards can use their charisma to avoid conflict altogether (results may vary). By combining strengths and covering for each other’s weaknesses, it’s a lot easier to walk out of that dungeon in one piece.
Design is no different. It’s especially important as a new designer to lean on those around you. Your imposter syndrome will tell you that if you can’t figure it out, then maybe you don’t deserve to be there. Imposter syndrome is also wrong!
Collaboration is a tenet of strong design teams and the best way to get amazing results. It’s a core value at Q4.
For example, I’m working to improve my UI and microinteractions skills. I’m far from expert, but that’s ok because, without fail, there will be someone on the team with an incredible talent for it. I know that I can go to these peers for feedback or a jam session to help me take something good and make it truly great. On the flip side, I’m pretty strong with information architecture, and I’m more than happy to assist other designers with this work when they ask. Collaborate early and often; you’ll be shocked at how much better your team is for it.
Accessibility Matters
As discussed above, D&D characters have different strengths and weaknesses. Some of these differences lead to interesting, and frustrating, interactions within the game. For example, an in-game mechanic for some character races is Darkvision. It gives certain players (i.e. Elves) the ability to see when the lights are off while others (i.e. Humans and Halflings) are literally left in the dark. This provides them with massive advantages in battle, like seeing what you want to hit contrasted with the devastating disadvantage of swinging blindly.
I think about this when designing for accessibility. Whether we’re working with a situational, temporary, or permanent difference in abilities, life does not offer a level playing field.
Living this frustration in the game helps me empathize more with certain users and prompts me to advocate heavily for an equitable experience in our products. There’s room in the design for everyone.
Adapting to differences
While players control characters, the Game Master (GM) controls the world around them. They are the ones who set up challenges, plot hooks, and scenarios for the group. As the GM, part of your job is to make the game fun for everybody, but that can be tricky. Some people prefer to spend their time battling enemies, whereas others like exploring the world and solving puzzles. You can’t make everyone happy all the time, but you work to find a good balance.
A huge part of being a product designer is evaluating your solutions with users. Very rarely is there a one-size fits all approach where things are ideal for everyone. It can be a challenge to sort through diverse feedback pointing in multiple directions.
Running D&D campaigns has allowed me to recognize that same need for give and take in my design work. While the experience can’t always be perfect for every user (or player), consider it a challenge to get creative with different ways to support the minority while catering to the majority. Create an environment where everyone gets to play.
Steal like an artist
There’s nothing new under the sun. Every story has already been told, yet we still keep finding ways to adapt and remix these stories into something new. An amazing thing about the D&D community is how we share ideas and inspiration among ourselves.
As both a player and a GM, it’s fun to take inspiration from different sources and spin them together in new ways. I’ve used plot lines from some of my favorite shows and books but combined in ways that work for people I’m playing with. I can still surprise players even if they know the source of my inspiration.
Ideation in design works in a similar fashion. Arguably, it benefits users when a product follows similar conventions based on what they are already comfortable with. It’s completely normal to see how other design teams are approaching problems and what different ways there are to solve them. But you never want to copy something exactly. It’s important to recognize the difference between plagiarism and inspiration! Aside from being unethical, the context and use cases are going to be different than your own, so stealing a design outright is a bad idea. However, you can compare others’ work against your own assumptions and gain new perspectives.
Don’t be afraid of compromise
One of the biggest surprises for me upon entering my career as a product designer was the amount of negotiating that I do on a daily basis. When situations change and we need to pivot our approach, design is often one of the easiest ways to reduce scope. It can’t always be a hack and slash: some features or components are critical for the experience while others are nice-to-haves. It’s up to the designer to help negotiate when and where tradeoffs can happen.
D&D has been an excellent training ground for when to stand firm on important issues and when to compromise for the sake of progress.
At its heart, D&D is a communal storytelling game. There is no singular hero or protagonist, but a group of characters weaving together a story based on their unique goals, feelings, and actions. Just like any group, there’s going to be conflict within the party, and it’s up to each player to find resolutions that move the story forward.
You might not always agree whether to spare the bad guy or which quest to take, but you can lean into what’s important to your character and compromise on the things that aren’t critical to move the narrative along.
The dice don’t always roll in your favour
Dungeons and Dragons is played by stating an intention and rolling a dice to determine the outcome. Each character has attributes that can help or hinder a roll, depending on what they are trying to achieve. You can have all the best stats and a great plan but still fall short of success if the dice rolls too low. When this happens, you need to roll with the punches (pun intended) and figure out your next move. The outcome might be less than ideal, but you play at the whim of the Dice Gods, who I find are rarely in a good mood.
In life and the product design cycle, even the best-laid plans can go sideways due to factors outside of your control. It happens to the best of us. Features get shelved, or the market reception isn’t what you expected. It’s important to recognize it might not have been a particular shortcoming on your end but just the way things go sometimes.
In the end, all you can do is take stock, see what your options are, and choose a course of action. Most importantly, don’t take any of it too personally.
Any D&D players among my product design readers? I’d love to know whether you think playing has levelled up your Product Designer game!!
P.S.: Are you passionate about applying your creativity to solve customer problems in a highly collaborative environment? Visit our careers page and find out more.
