Getting Unstuck

This idea, borrowed from Zen Buddhism, reminds us to keep a mental attitude that is open, eager, and with as few preconceptions as possible. Try to think about how you’d approach a problem if you never knew anything about it or that problem space. This concept is generally described as “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” Try to let go of your previous assumptions, but not your experience and insights!

Originally from French culinary arts, Mise En Place can be translated as “everything in its place.” I apply this to design as keeping my tools ready, updated, and handy. Keep your workspace (and your computer workspace) clean and free of clutter. Then finally spend some time making good templates and default layouts for your work. The idea here is that when the space around you is “ready to work,” so are you.

Often, diving into the weeds like this can cause me to lose focus on the big picture, so I try to remember to begin by designing in broad strokes. I try to design one full pass of the experience I’m envisioning and save the extra details for later.

The idea here is to find another similar design and catalog abstract things about it. Describe how it moves, how it feels to use. Does it feel valuable or disposable? How much complexity is exposed? This helps you remove the actual look of the design and helps you think about what you actually find valuable about that experience. Then you can try to apply those values to your own design (without just doing what they did).

This is something that has served me well for years. I find that fine details are not often useful in the beginning of a design, especially when discussing it with teammates. So I try to hit a whiteboard and draw explanations out with thick lines and little actual detail. Try to find the flow of the experience first. Once you can’t actually draw the detail you need with the marker, move to pencil and paper. This lets you “refocus” on the screens and re-balance them with this new detail added.

Constraints force creative thinking. If you find yourself paralyzed by too many possibilities, add some hard parameters to your work (even if they’re not real constraints!). This can help focus your thinking and get you moving in a direction. Some examples of constraints I apply to myself are: setting a deadline, blocking out time for specific types of actions (sketching, wireframes, prototypes, research). Other times I find I may need to change my venue for a fresh approach to a problem. Booking out a meeting room or working outside can help shake things up creatively.

New designs don’t just spring from the head of geniuses, they take hard work and putting in the hours. If you can find some flow on a problem, ride it as far as you can, even if that means turning people away. I often will cancel meetings or just work from remote if I find some flow. It’s rare and amazing. Don’t waste it. The more years of experience you have the quicker you can find your flow on a design. My favorite quote on getting to work is by artist Chuck Close:

I typically call it the 1st time, 100th time, 1000th time lens. This really helps me try to put myself in both a new user’s state of mind versus someone more familiar with the system, or finally someone who may be almost tired of the experience. These help me try on different points of view to refine my design.

Try taking your screen and doubling the amount of real estate you have. Or maybe half it, as if it were on a tiny phone. Rework the experience for those other sizes and try out some pros and cons of each. What works at these scales? What doesn’t?

It’s actually a very simple exercise that can really unstick your thinking. First take your current design and duplicate it. Then remix it and reshuffle it until it feels sufficiently different. Do that a few times then take the ones that feel the weakest and toss them (actually, archive them for later). This helps either find a new approach or help you validate that your initial approach is strong enough.

It’s more than likely going to end up there eventually anyway, but these can sometimes give you a peek into where the experience may degrade eventually. Demo the design on a phone or a low res projector to see where usability and legibility suffer. Trying old browsers or old computers is a good way to test the water too. This of course is no replacement for actual QA testing, but it can help get the creative gears moving in a pinch.

If you don’t, I highly recommend getting yourself acquainted with a few. IBM, Design Principles FTW, and UI-Patterns are a few of my favorites. One additional thing to remember about design patterns is that you should not just go to them as a default. If your design needs the experience to feel new, fresh, or innovative, a familiar pattern might not help so much. Always feel free to challenge a pattern when appropriate!

What would your problem look like if it was solved entirely with text? What if you designed with no text and only iconography? Testing these limits can help you give visual priority to competing actions.

When in doubt, simplify.

Typically referred to as a minimum viable product (MVP), this practice of taking an ideal experience and rolling it back to just the core essentials can really help streamline a design and launch faster to help get more realistic usage data back quicker. Just be sure your team is really bought in to the idea of iteration after launch!

You should know what every list, display, and screen looks like in a “zero state,” when there is no data to show. Think about as many possible error states as you can and make them more useful. I’d recommend you don’t design for every single possible problem, but try to make the player feel like they didn’t break it.

Show your design to as many people as possible via over-the-shoulder testing, player labs, or invites to try out a prototype. I’ve been surprised how much just some reality-checking can help finalize a design.

I think of this as knowing when to take your hands off the pottery wheel, because sometimes you’ll get this impression that if it doesn’t feel right yet you can just keep going and you’ll get it right eventually. When nearing the end of a project, just remember that in general more design doesn’t equal good design.

Peers, collaborators, bosses, clients, everyone. I always try to remind other designers that “You are NOT your work!” Take any and all feedback to heart, but remember it is about the design itself, not about you or your skill. Don’t try to judge your worth as a designer based on feedback on specific projects.

You shouldn’t be afraid of dropping a design and redoing it if it means you’ll get a better solution in the long run. Just be sure you keep every approach in a scrapbook or design archive with some way of digging them back up later. I’ve had designs I worked on 3+ years ago become relevant at some later point and pulling up my old designs saved a ton of time and effort.

Occasionally we get a problem where your first attempt is strong enough to build consensus, launch, and start getting real usage data. This may seem crazy, but sometimes the best way is to just launch it and learn as you go.