The “Other” Mindset
6 Ways Legal Professionals Can Start Thinking Like a Designer
Note: This article is the second part of an ongoing series of articles by the Faegre Drinker Design Lab on very basic design concepts for legal professionals who are new to design. The first article is “What on Earth is Design?”
By now, you’ve probably heard about the importance of having the right “mindset” in your approach to various aspects of your life and career. Carol Dweck explains that one can develop either a “fixed” mindset or a “growth” mindset, and the mindset you choose to foster (you do have a choice in all this) can impact your ability to succeed in life and work. As you might expect, you’ll generally do much better if you adopt a growth mindset.
In the world of design thinking, we could call the designer’s mindset the “Other” mindset — almost everything a designer does is with others, for others, or about others. In short, you need to be “Other-Centered” in design.
Let’s examine a few of the guidelines that illustrate the Other-Centered approach to design.
1. A designer looks for patterns in others
A designer is constantly looking for patterns in the behavior of others (whom we call “users”). You might spend hours listening to users, watching users in action, and developing an understanding of how various users interact with a product, service, or place. As Annie Valdes and Peter MacDonald note in their design course at the Stanford d.school, the critical next step is for you to look for one or more patterns among a set of users. What do users have in common? What is a common need among users? Is this need limited to a particular subset of users? A designer’s mindset includes a focus on connecting ideas, people, and needs.
2. A designer plays well with others
Design is a team sport. It requires people to work with other team members towards a common goal. Like any team, a design team needs specialists in various areas as well as generalists who know how to see the “big picture” in any project. Feedback is an intrinsic part of the design process. As Bill Burnett and Dave Evans explain:
Designers believe in radical collaboration because true genius is a collaborative process. We design our lives in collaboration and connection with others, because ‘we’ is always stronger than ‘I’ — it’s as simple as that.
3. A designer empathizes with others
You can’t spend more than a few minutes talking to a designer without addressing the concept of empathy. Like a good therapist, a designer empathizes for a living — it’s an essential part of the job. Jon Kolko writes, to build empathy with users, a design-centric organization “empowers employees to observe behavior and draw conclusions about what people want and need.”
4. A designer is optimistic with others
Since design includes the challenge of the intersection of desirability, feasibility, and viability, a designer needs to maintain a positive, optimistic attitude throughout the entire design process. Otherwise, a designer could easily give up on the project. By showing optimism, designers signal to others that they accept the natural constraints and setbacks that come with designing and are excited to move forward toward a solution.
5. A designer has fun with others
Design is one of the few fields in which one is expected to show delight and wonder at the office. If you walk by a group of designers working on a project, don’t be surprised if you notice that they seem to be having fun — laughing, joking, telling funny stories. This childlike attitude to problem-solving and stress management facilitates the exchange of new ideas and allows everyone to let off some steam.
6. A designer makes things with others
Finally, designers often grab supplies and work together to make a prototype of an idea. Prototyping allows designers to see ideas come to life. They love to make things. It’s summer camp all over again.
Tim Brown summarizes the common traits of leading designers:
William Morris, Frank Lloyd Wright, the American industrial designer Raymond Loewy, and the team of Ray and Charles Eames. What they all shared was optimism, openness to experimentation, a love of storytelling, a need to collaborate, and an instinct to think with their hands — to build, to prototype, and to communicate complex ideas with masterful simplicity. They did not just do design, they lived design.
The Faegre Drinker Design Lab is an official partner of Stanford d.school’s Legal Design Lab. Special thanks to Margaret Hagan for all her support.
