The design process is a lie
10 things people don’t tell you about designing products
If you’ve studied or read anything about design, you’re probably familiar with at least one design process framework. Something that describes what the process of designing something should be.
Usually you start with understanding the problem. You follow that with the exploration of ideas that could solve said problem. And ultimately this leads to discovering a solution.
Once you have a solution, you put it out there and you monitor it, so you can learn and feed another cycle of understanding > exploring > materializing.
There are a lot of different shapes that illustrate this process… circles, loops, diamonds, double diamonds, spirals, you name it. But at the end of the day, they all stand for the same idea, that this is a never-ending loop of learning and iterating.
This is a description of an ideal process, but as with anything, once you transpose it to real life it doesn’t always pan out that smoothly. Real life is messy, and there’s no better example of that than the year we now have behind us, 2020.
So… what problems can we find in the wild?
Too little
Probably more often than you’d like, you’ll find yourself in situations where you don’t have enough time. Despite that, people will still expect you to move forward and get something out the door. The result? People take shortcuts, which likely means skipping crucial parts of the ideal process.
It’s not just about time, it’s also about resources.
If you’re a so-called “generalist” and you’re expected to do EVERYTHING that is related to design or UX, is that humanly possible? Sure it is… but usually people who go very wide won’t go super deep, or they will take a lot of time to do so.
Design in my mind is a team sport, not just because many heads work better than one, but because you need diversity. With a diverse, multidisciplinary team you can go deep and wide simultaneously, and you can bounce ideas off each other. On your own, you’re probably just scratching the surface.
Too late
If you’re new to a company or a team, you might also find yourself landing on a moving train. Which means that it’s going to be pretty hard to stop it and even harder to turn it around.
I’ve seen new joiners, time and time again, going through a first phase of rejection, where they question what was done up to that point, and try to advocate to shift the direction the train is going. But more often than not this is followed by a second phase of acceptance and commitment to deliver, because the momentum of the train is just too much and you end up having to decide to either run with it or to let it run over you.
That said, if you see the train going in the wrong direction, I still encourage you to try to redirect it. The only advice I give you is that it’s easier to do that if you’re not doing it on your own.
You’re solving the wrong problem
This one is often a side effect of the points above, but not limited to that.
Even if you think you’re taking all the right steps in the process, that doesn’t mean you’re doing them right, and you might still find yourself solving the wrong problem. How is that possible?
Just doing what you’re told
One example is projects that are heavily directed by top leadership, especially when people don’t dare to question, or at least try to validate, whether or not it’s a problem worth solving.
Just giving them what they ask
Another is when people lean too heavily on user feedback — taking it as a fact and trying to give people what they’re asking for, rather than trying to understand the root of the problem.
So… is all hope lost? Are these frameworks just something that live in presentations of people who are lying to you with a smile on their face?
Hell no! A framework is just a floor for you to stand on, it’s not a ceiling.
Frameworks aren’t meant to protect you from failure, they’re just there as a starting point for you to build upon.
Now… with a smile on my face, pretending I know what I’m doing, I can share some things that you won’t often see represented in design frameworks, because they won’t fit in a nice diagram, but I believe are important to keep in mind.
To find the root, you have to dig
People talk about empathy, as if it’s an item on a checklist, but I don’t believe empathy is a step. For me, empathy needs to be a constant in the process. And personally, the moment I start to think of solutions is when I manage to really think of a problem from the user’s perspective and get to the root of it.
Researching can only take you so far. Sometimes, only when I start exploring solutions do I realize that the problem is something entirely different. At that point, it’s important to be prepared to pivot, so you can get started on solving the real problem as soon as possible.
Don’t get attached to anything
Many times I’ve heard the advice not to get attached to a first solution, but I haven’t heard anyone telling me not to get attached to the ones that come after.
One thing you might find, as you go down a rabbit hole of ideation and exploration, is that sometimes more is not always better, and the best course of action, despite the investment in other alternatives, is proceeding with the very first idea that was brought up.
As you shouldn’t be attached to the first idea, I think it’s equally important that you don’t get attached to all the work you did after that first idea. That way you can look at it all without bias, and be able to identify the best direction to move forwards.
Try, try, try
Research is important, but you can learn so much before you start by trying things. Personally, I find that trying things is a great way to learn, and the more you try, the more you end up learning.
Ideation is a good first step, especially if you manage to involve more people. But don’t rely too much on it, sometimes the best ideas come from brute force. Not actual violence, I just mean trying things over, and over, and over again, until you stumble into something that just works.
In reality, an epiphany isn’t a sudden realization, it’s just the result of a lot of trial and error.
That said, as you try things, consider bringing other minds along for the journey, because that will always open doors you wouldn’t open otherwise, and make your work so much better. Sometimes all you need is a fresh pair of eyes and another mind to bounce ideas off, and all of the sudden you’ll see the things you didn’t see before.
Your work is never done
Building is often considered engineering work, but I think it’s key that designers are part of this as well. Things don’t always go according to plan, so it’s important that you’re present and engaged when your designs are being built. Collaborate with engineers to make sure you iron out all the kinks, and when needed, be ready to make compromises.
Good product design and development is all about collaboration. This can only happen with good communication, mutual respect, and a good amount of compromise.
Don’t see a compromise as a negative thing. Without it nothing gets built, so it’s good that you understand the importance of being part of the discussion. Participating in the conversation allows you to represent your user and make sure their experience doesn’t end up being neglected.
Once your designs are built, you may think that you’re done, but you’re not. That’s when you can start to truly measure the impact of the work, evaluate the users’ response, and use all the learning to your advantage.
For this, it’s important that you consider what you want to learn and how you’re going to measure it while designing. If you happen to be lucky enough to work with data scientists, make sure that you involve them in the design process.
Progress is not always expected
Small iterations allow you to improve upon a design gradually, in a way that is easier for users to adopt, but sometimes you need to take a leap of faith.
I like to compare product design to evolution in nature. You can iterate on a design the same way nature evolves, minimal changes that occur over generations, slowly but surely making things better.
But sometimes that can get you stuck in the process of trying to breed a faster generation of horses, when you could instead put your efforts into inventing an automobile.
People don’t always know that they need something until you put it in front of them, and as we’ve experienced time and time again, disruption is inevitable, so if someone is about to disrupt your product, it’s best that someone is you.
Think about Apple when they launched the first iPhone, they didn’t just disrupt the smartphone industry, they also cannibalized their most successful product at that time, the iPod.
All this is to say that, as you work on the next iteration of a product, it’s always worth considering what comes after it.
The future? Don’t let it happen, make it happen
When you don’t think long term, it’s really difficult to know where to go.
Imagine you want to build a staircase. You need to know where it’s going, so you can plan out the steps, otherwise you might build one that takes you straight into a wall.
Many may think, “what matters is the here and the now”, but this is a big fallacy. Disregarding the future makes for a careless present — just think about global warming and what got us here. Or even the pandemic that we’re in and how much could have been prevented if our governments thought more about the future.
Thinking about the future makes you consider the steps you’re taking today more carefully.
That happens because thinking long term changes the way you frame the problems of today. You zoom out and start looking at the bigger picture, which helps you see relationships that you wouldn’t see otherwise, and allows you to establish a vision, so you know where to aim.
This mindset completely changes the way you tackle the problems of today, and helps you prevent painting yourself into a corner.
With that I don’t mean that it’s all about the future. To define the future, it’s key that you have a good understanding of the past and leverage everything that you learn in the present.
Now, because nobody can actually predict the future, this vision should never be taken as set in stone. It’s just meant to be a flexible guideline, so you can adjust as you learn more.
Testing is not an option
Here’s the thing, if you’re creating a real product and it ends up in front of real people, you don’t really have a choice whether or not you want to test it.
The option you have is whether or not you do it before you release it — because if you don’t, the testing will happen after you release it, when people start using your product, and you might not like the results.
So it’s always best that to test things as much as you can before you present it to the world.
But there’s only so much you can learn from testing. You’ll never know for sure what the reception will be once your designs hit the real world. Testing is a way to increase your chances of success, not to eliminate your chances of failure.
I should also say, you don’t need to test everything. A test is meant to answer questions — if you’re not trying to answer a question your test will most likely be futile.
So… where’s the lie?
The main reason I say the design process is a lie is because we make it seem like going across a rope ladder — step by step you walk towards the other side. But to me, designing for digital products is more like street skateboarding.
Sorry, I can’t help but use skateboarding metaphors. Let me explain.
As a skater, you look at your surroundings and you find ways to keep moving, even if that means that you have to jump down a set of stairs, grind down a kinked rail, run away from a security guard, or simply avoid a bunch of pebbles in the sidewalk.
You use the constraints around you in the best way you can and try to do it with style.
Design is not very different. You don’t always have the best conditions, and constraints will always be around. All we can try to do is work with what we have and try to do our best.
The important bit, as any skater will tell you, is that you learn how to fall because that’s unavoidable. And every time you fall, you get back up again and keep trying, until you succeed.
For a profession as young as ours, I don’t believe anyone has it fully figured out yet. Everyday, we’re trying to solve problems that never existed before, and we design for more people than we can comprehend.
The way we do that, if we’re being honest, is by making things up as we go and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
The real truth is that nobody really knows what they’re doing — like I’m doing as I write this article. They just pretend and keep trying.
