Articulating Design Process

Last weekend Michael Bierut posted a piece on Design Observer entitled "This is My Process," which discusses the difference between his actual design process, and the one he documents in client proposals. He states that the process outlined for a client frequently has nothing to do with the way a project actually goes, and then he theorizes what he would say to his clients if he were being truthful about his real process:

When I do a design project, I begin by listening carefully to you as you talk about your problem and read whatever background material I can find that relates to the issues you face. If you’re lucky, I have also accidentally acquired some firsthand experience with your situation. Somewhere along the way an idea for the design pops into my head from out of the blue. I can’t really explain that part; it’s like magic. Sometimes it even happens before you have a chance to tell me that much about your problem! Now, if it’s a good idea, I try to figure out some strategic justification for the solution so I can explain it to you without relying on good taste you may or may not have. Along the way, I may add some other ideas, either because you made me agree to do so at the outset, or because I’m not sure of the first idea. At any rate, in the earlier phases hopefully I will have gained your trust so that by this point you’re inclined to take my advice. I don’t have any clue how you’d go about proving that my advice is any good except that other people—at least the ones I’ve told you about—have taken my advice in the past and prospered. In other words, could you just sort of, you know...trust me?

While I agree with the essence of this explanation—that it can be difficult to articulate exactly how we as designers come up with ideas—I take issue with the claim that "it's like magic"...

Last weekend Michael Bierut posted a piece on Design Observer entitled "This is My Process," which discusses the difference between his actual design process, and the one he documents in client proposals. He states that the process outlined for a client frequently has nothing to do with the way a project actually goes, and then he theorizes what he would say to his clients if he were being truthful about his real process:

When I do a design project, I begin by listening carefully to you as you talk about your problem and read whatever background material I can find that relates to the issues you face. If you’re lucky, I have also accidentally acquired some firsthand experience with your situation. Somewhere along the way an idea for the design pops into my head from out of the blue. I can’t really explain that part; it’s like magic. Sometimes it even happens before you have a chance to tell me that much about your problem! Now, if it’s a good idea, I try to figure out some strategic justification for the solution so I can explain it to you without relying on good taste you may or may not have. Along the way, I may add some other ideas, either because you made me agree to do so at the outset, or because I’m not sure of the first idea. At any rate, in the earlier phases hopefully I will have gained your trust so that by this point you’re inclined to take my advice. I don’t have any clue how you’d go about proving that my advice is any good except that other people—at least the ones I’ve told you about—have taken my advice in the past and prospered. In other words, could you just sort of, you know...trust me?

While I agree with the essence of this explanation—that it can be difficult to articulate exactly how we as designers come up with ideas—I take issue with the claim that "it's like magic". Using the term "magic" makes it seem like designers come up with ideas out of nowhere, by relying on some sort of supernatural prowess to pull designs out of a hat. Kottke.org also recently commented on Michael Bierut's post, and he cited a similar post written by Jeff Veen last year. This piece better articulates what Michael Bierut is getting at because it considers the research and gathering phase of the design process as the place where the proverbial rabbit comes from:

So it was revealing to read Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" in which he discusses split-second decisions. (There are countless reviews that can give you more background.) What I found particularly interesting is how the scenarios he describes map to my own design experiences. He writes about art historians who were able to instantly determine that a statue was fake. Or the Army general would could make battle-winning decisions on the fly without the advanced data gathering tools his opponents had access to. Or the psychologists who could mind-read emotions by watching muscles twitch in people's faces.

And I sort of realized that I do design that way. I build up a tremendous amount of background data, let it synthesize, then "blink" it out as a fully-formed solution. It typically works like this:

1. Talk to everybody I possibly can about the problem.
2. Read everything that would even be remotely related to what I'm doing. Hang charts, graphs, diagrams, and screenshots all over my office.
3. Observe user research; recall past research.
4. Stew in it all, panic as deadline approaches, stop sleeping, stop eating.
5. Be struck with an epiphany. Instantly see the solution. Curse my tools for being too slow as I frantically get it all down in a document.
6. Sleep for three days.




The key to this, really, is in the fourth step: stewing in it. That is, gathering as much data as possible, whether it appears to be related or not, and just letting my mind soak it in. One of the criticisms levied against Gladwell is that he appears to suggest that snap decisions work really well except when they fail. Fair enough. But he does offer examples as to why this happens—preparation. The art historians had spent decades surrounded by historic art. The general had studied every conflict and strategy in the history of warfare...

For designers, preparation for a project not only includes research that directly relates to that project, but also all the other projects they have worked on, their specific life experiences, and their "soaking up" of design which lies all around them. Ideas are the culmination of the mind "stewing in" and synthesizing all of these elements, they do not just "pop-up" "from out of the blue".

Instead of "strategically justifying solutions to clients" after the fact, isn't it our role as professionals to construct an articulate means of explaining our true process to clients? What would this model look like if it's not separated into the standard proposal stages? How would you explain your design process?

Comments

[Randy J. Hunt]

This recent piece on Limited Language references the furniture design of Swedish designers Front, which literally capture the "burst of creativity." I think I'm in love.

[marcrabinowitz]

To shed a bit more light on the whole creativity/inspiration process...
In his book "Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty that Causes Havoc" Arthur I. Miller portrays a model for creativity in his comparison of the two figures.

"Creativity in art can be explored like creativity in science because artists and scientists use many of the same strategies toward discovering new representations of nature. Just like scientists, artists solve problems."

Miller notes Poincare's introspection of 1908 and supports it with the French psychologist Toulouse's study where Poincare asserts his knowledge of when to stop working on a problem because "during the intervals he assumes... his unconscious continues the work of reflection". Poincare believed that liberty reigns in the unconscious. Liberty (as he defines it) is the simple absence of discipline and the disorder born of chance.*

Since Miller says it pretty well I'll just let him have at it:

"Unconscious thought can be encapsulated in what I have called "network thinking" In network thinking, concepts from apparently disparate disciplines are combined via the proper choice of mental image or metaphor. The intense desire to solve a problem can produce stress that in turn cause associations that are not possible in conscious thought- in other words, the mind brings up the problem in all sorts of unlikely contexts. Eventually, however, it must focus on particular approaches. It is this choice - finding the proper image or metaphor - that catalyzes the illumination, the nascent moment of creativity."**

Part of our roles as designers may be to tap into the emotional, the subjective, the other-worldly, the un and subconscious and utilize this knowledge towards effective communication. But we also must remember that while this creates the best work, many people we form relationships with and communicate with (clients, our intended audience...) are numbers, facts and paper people.

A tough brief can be a challenge. Knowing where to grab the inspiration from and being able to distill the inspiration into an even more coherent form can be even tougher. But to provide rationale, to communicate how and why we do what we do might just be our ultimate design problem to date.


-------------------------------------
*Just to clarify: Miller further states

"Neither Toulouse nor Poincare nor Einstein used the term "unconscious" in the Freudian sense, and neither do I. Rather it will be used in the more neutral sense of cognitive science, as a part of the mind to which the consciousness has no access but which does not have a particular set of emotional agendas seperate from the conscious one."

** The intense desire to solve a problem isn't only a 'designer' thing. According to Wertheheimer's Gestalt theory of creativity our minds have an irresistable urge to create structures, or arrangements of facts into patterns that possess maximal symmetry.

[Randy J. Hunt]

Miller articulates the application of stored knowledge in a way I've never come across before.

Marc, I'm not sure if you're suggesting that Beirut's technique of articulating a false but understandable process is a solution to our "ultimate design problem." Here I mean understandable by the "numbers, facts and paper people" you refer to. While it lacks a utopian honesty and an attempt by the designer which would inevitably be self-enlightening in its construction, I believe Beirut's technique, which we've all participated in in one form or another, is a pretty damn good attempt and certainly gets things done.

I've found that I am able to get the rare client on board and understanding the real (read: always different, often scattered) creative development of their project. In the cases this has happened there are two consistent things: 1) consistency in their own goals (thus giving a stationary target to shoot for), and 2) complete trust in the role of the designer.