Bouldering and UX: (Re)learning my craft
I was recently invited by a good friend and colleague to join him at the rock climbing gym after work. He’s an avid climber and excellent boulderer.
If you aren’t familiar with it, bouldering, like rock climbing, has a series of “problems”, or routes, for climbers to solve. Unlike rock climbing, however, the routes are lower to the ground, and you don’t use ropes. So if you fall, you’re falling into the padding on the floor.
You see where I’m going with this, right?
Sharing in your friend’s hobbies can give you an entirely new sense of who they are and how their minds work. And when they also happen to be a trusted colleague whose work you respect, it can also mean learning something new about your craft. Or at least, a new way of looking at it.
Sharing in your friend’s hobbies can give you an entirely new sense of who they are and how their minds work … it can also mean learning something new about your craft.
So here are the three things I learned about UX and product design from getting on a rock wall:
1. Solutions must be practical
When we first started and I got on the wall I wanted to make big moves and power my way through. I wanted to be a little flashy with it. And it worked for the easier routes, but quickly I found myself trying to muscle through a problem and ending up on the floor, worn out, and no closer to a solution.
We often get caught up in making splashy impacts with big visual changes, or giant roadmap items. But a lot of times we can have more impact on the business by flexing in smaller, more practical ways…
The key moves to solving a route aren’t the big flashy ones, but the small, strategic ones. Learning how to rotate your body to reach, engaging your core to lift, or swap your feet on a hold. Similarly, we often get caught up in making splashy impacts with big visual changes, or giant roadmap items. But a lot of times we can have more impact on the business by flexing in smaller, more practical ways and clocking up a lot of small wins very quickly.
Which brings me to my next point…
2. Solutions must be fast
When you’re hanging on the wall by your fingers, things start moving very quickly. Cause if you wait too long, you tire out and bam, you’re on the floor. Watching the more experienced climbers, a problem didn’t last more than a couple minutes. They had to identify issues, make adjustments, and land on stable solutions very quickly. But moving too quickly meant making bad moves or running out of holds and, you guessed it, crashing to the ground.
When you’re hanging on the wall by your fingers, things start moving very quickly.
Business today moves at a breakneck speed. Sit around too long and you’re obsolete in the market. But move too fast and you risk building solutions without problems. Make sure you’re using the right mix of user research and data analytics to identify and solve real problems with real business value as quickly as you can.
3. Solutions must use what you have
The more I watched experienced climbers like my coworker, the more I realized they tended to be successful because they often used their shoes and the wall to create temporary foot holds (known as smearing). When the route didn’t present them with the tools they needed, they used what they had until they got something better.
Use what you have to get the value you need to invest in more specialized tools.
Product and UX designers have to be just as adaptive. Don’t have fancy prototyping software? Try PowerPoint or Keynote. Don’t have the metrics you need? See if you have data you can infer them from. Use what you have to get the value you need to invest in more specialized tools.
Getting a new perspective on the world can be an eye opening experience, especially when that view is hanging upside down from an overhang while getting coached on how to climb up over it. Did I uncover deep hidden truths about our field? Not really… But it did give me a new lens and focus on the things I do know, and how I apply them everyday. And hopefully it’s encouraged you to go out and expand your horizons a bit — if not for you, then at least for your craft.
Bonus: Learn to fall
I couldn’t help but sneak in an extra… The first thing I learned at the climbing gym wasn’t how to climb, but actually how to fall. Bouldering is dangerous, and it’s easy to hit the floor wrong and injure yourself. But also, falling is inevitable. It’s part of the sport. Failing is just part of problem solving.
Falling is inevitable. It’s part of the sport. Failing is just part of problem solving.
That can be a hard lesson. You will fail. A lot. So start slow. Fail in low-risk situations first. Engineer your tests and experiments to be minimum impact. Learn to fail in a safe way, with the right form and padding underneath you so that you can get back up and keep on climbing.
Ok, now I’ve stretched the metaphor as far as it can go, but thanks for hanging on…
