Iterate the circuit not the segment.
Lessons learned from the trenches of rapid product design and development.
I’m a perfectionist. I think the details set apart the great from the good and have always paid great attention to detail in my work. However, if attention to detail is not used correctly, it could lead to your product’s downfall.
Product ideas are rarely complete at moment of conception. Neither are they complete in their first or second or third versions. Products and digital tools evolve, they evolve to meet people’s needs and they evolve as they manifest themselves. A finished product is never exactly the same as was initially conceived.
When building a product, let it tell you what to do next. Listen to it’s problems and address them as they arise. That being said, some problems are more important than others. For example, the padding on that button is probably less important than getting the visual hierarchy of the page’s content correct. Recognizing the order of importance of these problems is a learned skill that takes practice to master.
Breeze through the tiny details. Instead, get to the core of the experience. Solve high level issues first, like the contents of the page and their hierarchy. Or the order of screens.
Move quickly from the wireframe for the home page to the wireframe for the next page, focusing your attention to macro details (visual hierarchy and experience) over micro (like button padding and gradient hue). In the same way, move quickly from wireframes to higher fidelity designs. From designs to code, and so on. Your goal should be a complete circuit. A functional application.
In many ways, the previously frozen divides between steps are starting to melt together. Sometimes I skip wireframes. Sometimes I skip designs. But usually, it is some sort of blurry middle ground. For example I might start in sketches and then move right into code. The sketches were just enough to get the idea in my head out so that I could take this idea and improve upon it in the next iteration. That next iteration might not even be in the same medium. I might design some screens directly in code or some in Sketch 3 first.
Efficiency lies in agile teams made up of talented generalists. Hybrids with the ability to prioritize tasks can move fluidly and efficiently from concept to design to code.
Disclaimer: I did not invent this methodology. This writing is a reflection on my process over the past 4 months while being mentored by Chris Hinkle and working at Siberia. Inspiration was also taken from the article “How Spotify Builds Products” by Henrik Kniberg.
