Why the designer should be able to abandon the idea

Design - is the solution. Be a designer - means to constantly look for problems to be solved (and they always have), and work up until not get closer to the correct result. Make the right decision - it means to be able to abandon the proposed idea, if you see that it does not work.

Design can love. At least I have it so. I hope that you, too. But let's be honest, in this work an incredible amount of frustration. We are always looking for the solutions. We think that they are great. We have been working tirelessly for the special moment that is worth all the frustration. But most of the time we do not achieve the goal. It is difficult to love something that does not justify the hopes.

If you are going to love the design, love the process of finding solutions. If you are going to love two things, the following must be love to have your problems foregone conclusion. If you are going to love three things, you love the people you are trying to help. Do not treat these people as consumers, unless you are trying to help heroin addicts.

But do not fall for the option until then, until you are sure that this is the solution.

It will break your heart. And worse - it hurts the people you are trying to help. When you take your car out of the shop, you do not want to mechanic persuaded you that the brakes in order. You want them to in fact We were in order. If you are developing security measures, you do not want people to feeling safe. Do you want to really guarantee security.

Your job as a designer is to question all the potential solutions until you are entrenched in the conviction based on facts. It does not matter whose idea it is, yours or someone else. You should be valid only for people for whom you are solving a problem, not ideas. By the way, people who you help, and the people that you paid for it, is not the same thing.

It's hard. And it takes a lot of experience, not to go on about the heart. But it is possible. The Mule Design, we are engaged in research. We interviewed people, we collect the data, we study the behavior and so on. And only after that we start to discuss possible solutions, based on the information gathered. And we can determine the value of the proposed solutions, based on the conducted research. Then and only then we can afford to start thinking that this decision is.

If we start coming up with a solution before it will conduct a study, we will look for him to confirm. We begin to interpret the results of the study so that they have confirmed the correctness of the idea. This is called bias. This is a frequent occurrence

So you got to the very special moment and come up with something, what to believe? Evaluate the idea, ask colleagues to evaluate her. And even if the score of your favorite solutions is not the same as you'd expect, understand that they are doing their job.

If colleagues have found fault with your work - thank them! And then think whether you can fix it.

When a colleague tells you that your idea is great, tactfully trying not to smash it to smithereens, most likely, this man is more interested in how to maintain good relations with you than is to help you become a good designer.

Regret about sunk costs - a common mistake. If the decision is wrong, no matter how much time you spent on it. No matter what you've been working on it all weekend. It does not matter that you did not go to watch a movie with friends, and stayed at home and worked. Do not mix waste of time to achieve the goal. Think of it as the time spent on learning experience. That you no one can take away.

Is your time is worth more than the trust of people who are expecting you choose properly the problem of this? Is your ego so large that you will prefer to provoke a dangerous situation, but does not acknowledge that a mistake?

If your decision is wrong, be honest with yourself. Kill him here and now. Kill him before he had a chance to pull a real people to whom you are trying to help. Since submit another non-working solution - is not only a failure, a loss of opportunities for those who needed it to work. It is unethical.

And the struggle for the idea, not because she deserves it, but because you do not want her to let go, do not want to admit that they were wrong, in spite of evidence to the contrary - it is not a fight for a good design, it is fanaticism.

Let go of the idea. Spend the time to solve the problem than to collect debris.