5 Tough things that make you better

The following list is what I have learnt in the last 10 years of my Yoga/meditation practice and of my career. It took a lot of good teachers and lot of faith in myself to let some things go and cultivate others. I think they made me a better designer.

In short...

If you are working on any kind of problem, to solve it effectively:

• Be prepared to learn
• Be open to the circumstances
• Don't let your conditioning get between you and a good solution
• Act, stop thinking
• Be humble

Know what it means to really learn:

You need to acknowledge that learning is not accumulative. it happens in the now, you have to experience it. Not remember it. You still can read a book that tells you all about someone else's experience of learning and all the wonderful things they did as a result. For you to be able to gain anything tangible from reading this, other than huge inspiration, you'll need to try things out for yourself. You'll need to experiment and go on that journey too. Only an open mind can learn: you need to be willing to go into the unknown, and leave the safety of the known behind.

Know yourself:

You have been conditioned by schools, institutions, organisations, and even by your family and friends to see the world in a certain light. You need to figure out what is conditioning and what is you. You can't find that out by asking other people, by reading any books, or by going to some exotic place. You need to go inside rather than outside, and spend some time with yourself.  Creativeness comes through self-knowledge.  Creativity is not just the product of your thoughts. Until you know yourself, you will continue to have the same ideas again and again. You might not even realise that they belong to others. By knowing yourself, you access the world in a different way.

Give up on your beliefs:

Beliefs prevent us from really understanding anything. They get between us and ideas, and stop us from exploring new things. Having values is quite different  and allows you to draw the line between what is acceptable or not to you. Beliefs on the other hand whether they are about religions, design, rearing children, typography, gardening or anything else will put walls up around you. Next time you hear yourself say "I believe ..." stop right there and try on something else for size. There aren;t very many rules that you can apply to every single situation. You need to adapt easily to new circumstances by being open to what they offer.

Stop having ideas, take action:

Ideas are not real, action allows you to experience things immediately. It's very possible that you cannot actually have any original thoughts, because they are always a product of your conditioning. Creativity is completely original, and comes from embracing the world around you and being open to it. To embrace it, you must be a part of it, actively playing a role. You cannot be thinking away for ever more. Your mind will lead you astray and you will miss the obvious along with the ingenious   

Be humble:

There is no "learning to become humble", you either are or you are not. Humility opens up other people to you and the world around you. If you are unable to find humility, you need to start back at "learn" and work your way through the list. You will never know everything, and you will never be the best at everything. If you are the best at something, someone will eventually be better than you. When you land on a really brilliant solution, you have a lot of thanks to give: to whoever worked with you, to those who had all the ideas that you build on and stole from, to those who you observed and listened to, to those who taught you, to those who believed in you when you weren't so great. Give thanks where it is truly due and humility will find you.

Lastly, bonus quote for those who read:

"Happiness cannot be pursued: if you seek it it will evade you. It is not a sensation, a memory of the past, a sensation needs gratification". (Desikachar)

 photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin

The process of design: Gross to Subtle

Experience design is as complex as any other kind of design and follows to some degree the same processes. We look at problems that sometimes can be solved through logic and attention to detail, but the most interesting and far reaching challenges we take on cannot be solved in that way. They require highly divergent thinking, an excellent filter to narrow those possibilities down, and a fearless resolve. The work must be done, there are no epiphanies. 

We often begin with introducing ourselves to the challenge, understanding the breadth of it, seeking any foothold onto that colossal and perplexing wall of ice. Have others been here before, and what paths did they take? What tools will help? What is within reach? Have I climbed something similar before? 

You walk around this thing, playing through your head a million scenarios, remembering hundreds of things you've done before and pooling all your energy into understanding the problem. At some point, you'll exhaust yourself as you reach yet another dead end, yet another hurdle. Your solutions are not solutions at all, they're investigations that end in frustation. At some point you have to stop investigating and explore.

Exploration should be free of what has been, the knowledge you have accumulated and the things that you know. This is a new problem, and learning can only be experienced in the now, not in the past of your thoughts and ideas. You need to look at everything with beginner eyes, and have a sense of naive appreciation for the wild landscape around you. Stilling your mind from the noise of the inner monologue will allow you to experience all facets of the problem as it stands, not how you imagine that it is. You'll notice small things that look new to you now that see them, and you'll relax and stop to judge yourself and the situation. Where there is conflict there can be no freedom. Creativity can only exist in freedom. 

Finally you'll be still long enough to hear the solution. It has been there for longer than you know, just you needed to slow down and quieten down to hear it through the chaos that is a mind in agony over a problem. The first thing you will do is draw or jot down some words, lo-fi, easy and tactile. The more you try and think, the harder it is to hear it clearly, so experiencing is the only way forwards. By prototyping and playing with the thing, you craft something that makes you smile. Something that makes you feel that vibration of joy that only comes from reaching this point on this kind of journey. It's only just begun though.

You are at the gross end of the spectrum. You are moulding your solution from fresh discovery as you experience it. It has rough edges, it is ugly, it is incomplete and raw. Yet it is full of promise, and insight. It's likely that its hard for others to understand it, without you taking them on the journey you have been on, so they also can share in its awkward awesomeness. It is probably but a few lines of sharpie on the back of a napkin after all.

After many many rounds of refinement, it will be a sophisticated, mature and fully thought through, original solution. It is subtle. Those who use it as a final product will feel the intensity of it, although they may not understand that vibration they get from it. They will break into a smile, be filled with passion using your product, and never really know how far you had to go to retrieve it. You sweated the details down to the last one. That's part of the beauty. When the work is not done, when the journey from gross to subtle is not travelled, you can tell. You feel the shallowness of it, you feel the immaturity in the work.

Either they failed  reaching exploration because they pressured themselves to design a solution immediately, fearing the great unknown. Or they having never been on the journey, they never knew it was there, taking a bludgeon to the wall of ice instead of failing to se the possibilities. 

In the gross end of the spectrum live sketching, brainstorms, and mappings. How does it work and does it fulfil their need? At the subtlest end of the journey there is look and feel, colour, texture...does it delight and consume them? This is a long journey for products, with many iterations in between, on the spectrum. It requires everything you have: left and right hemispheres, all your time, all your energy and all your courage. 

This is the work of design. Although led by individuals, it is successful only in teams, for you will need the richness that different perspectives offer. For many, it is their first journey, and as the designer it is up to you to guide them through it to the other side and give them heart in the steep mountains.

Godspeed.

photo credit: marfis75 via photopin

Wabi-Sabi in Experience Design

Wabi-Sabi, simply put, is the ability to see beauty in simplicity, the ordinary and the imperfect. English is too clumsy a langage to explain it fully, and I am too much of a clumsy writer to do so well, but you can think of them like this: Wabi: The ability to make do with less; A "wabibito" is a person who can make something out of less parts than anyone else. It means content with little, and taking pleasure in the ordinary.

Sabi: The gift of time; To grow old gracefully and with dignity.

Wabi-Sabi aesthetic is also described as "imperfect, impermanent and incomplete". The beauty of those things is found in their simplicity, their unpretentiousness, their humbleness. They are unencumbered by anything unnecessary but not to the point that they look or feel clinical, rather their raw essence alone is left. They are not the center of attention but are unassuming and command a quiet authority. Wabi-sabi isn't just about the aesthetic though. It's also about the object giving you a feeling of serenity and having a connection to the object.

"Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent." (Tadao Ando)

Wabi-sabi in Life:

I've always loved the wear on my beloved denim jeans and old shoes.The wear on my moleskins that I dragged around the world with me. My cherished old family photographs, yellowing and frayed at the edges. Our old children story books from when we were small. I love asymmetrical things and simple design. I find magnificent beauty in less. I found joy in fewer possessions, less waste, big passions, being in nature and an uncomplicated life. Not striving to have it all and not trying to predict what my life should be like next year or next month or next time. Learning to be content in the present, and finding enjoyment in every day things. Wabi-sabi exists in my life, and I wager that it has its place in yours too.

Wabi-sabi in experience design and Lean/Agile teams:

As experience designers and as members of Lean/Agile teams, I think we are very Wabi-Sabi in our work:

• Our work is never finished, and so always incomplete
• We try to fail fast
• We try to limit waste
• We never release anything that is perfect
• We try to keep our experiences simple and unencumbered, without losing the humanity in them
• We strive to keep them subdued and honest
• The work we do will always evolve and age, and we will work with the downsides of design decisions we made earlier
• We never do "big upfront design", so our worldview is ever-changing and intuitive
• Our emphasis is always on working code and not on beautiful looking documentation. In this sense each artefact is one of a kind
• We know that our design will evolve, so we think about the present moment rather than projecting far into the future
• We work in iterations, in an organic way
• We adjust to change easily and avoid deliberations
• If we can do it with less, we do
• We pay attention to the ordinary (all those habits people develop to deal with bad design)
• We ensure our software "fails gracefully"
• Users "wear in" our designs and their relationship with the product changes over time
• The more people use our designs, the more they connect to them (like your relationship to your email account)
• We reuse code and design elements where we can
• The team has a history and a shared knowledge that seeps into the product

Resources:

BERG London have a beautiful blog post written by Tom Armitage on Wabi-Sabi right here.

Leonard Koren wrote a book called "Wabi-Sabi for artists, designers, poets & philosophers".

Marcel Theroux discovers Wabi-Sabi through the experience of the Japanese tea ceremony: "

Are you really being innovative?

A lot of people talk about innovation, and a lot of people describe themselves as innovative. You probably know some too: "innovative problem solvers", "innovators", "innovation machines", "creative problem solvers", "Creative innovators"... but few people actually do innovate. What was your last innovative act? Was it an idea? If it was that's good, but realising that idea is just as important, and sometimes where your greatest chance at innovation lies. If all you have is a big list of ideas that never became reality...you're dreaming. Imagination is a really important part of innovation, so you are part of the way there, but innovation comes from making it happen. That's where it gets really interesting.

A few places to start:

Creativity is "the defeat of habit by originality". How often can you be original in your every day work? How often are you? Do you think you can be? Whether you fit kitchens or speak in court for a living, you can be innovative.

Here are a bunch of ways you can be invite innovation in:

- See the bigger picture; Step away, then step away some more...

- Flip the problems around to see different perspectives

- Stop colouring inside the lines

- Solve the problem rather than being right

- Deconstruct first, then construct

- Start with the desired effect/outcome (rather than the minimum requirements)

- Throw out the obvious

-  Rebel Intelligently against rules; those you set yourself and those imposed on you.

- Let go of what you know (and be ok with the uncertainty)

- Have vision, don't change things for the sake of change

- Hang a question mark on all of those things you take for granted

- Change lives, not companies, businesses, products or processes

- Have great ideas and execute them ; Get it done

- Challenge complacency around you and your own

- Demand innovation: "What if..."

- Disrupt habitual thought patterns

- Question why, when you do things the same way as last time

- Be curious and excited about challenges

- Try new things all the time

This will open your mind and your life in ways that you never imagined possible. It's easy to read this list, and easier to not attempt any of the things on it.

Treasure the limitations:

A lot of people talk about innovation in ways that seem elusive. It's almost as though you need to wait for the perfect alignment of the stars, the perfect team, the perfect conditions to be able to create something, or hatch an idea. Remember this quote when you start to think that way:

"Whom the gods wish to destroy, the give unlimited resources" (Twyla Tharp)

The more money you have in the bank, the more control you have, the more time you have, the more everything you have, the less you are likely to innovate. Innovation is borne out of limitations, out of need. Constraints mean that you have to be creative, that you have to find a solution. The best thing to have in the world if you want to innovate, is a good set of limitations. A chance to really dig at something and keep at it until you have it solved in a way that will surprise even you.

If it feels unsolvable, walk away. Mix it up and do something completely opposite to what you think you need to do. It'll change your perspective and cheer you up. When you least expect it, you'll see a few more ways to solve this one.

Persuasion and vulnerability:

If you're really innovating often, you're probably ok feeling vulnerable. When you're breaking new ground, you have a lot of people to convince before you can get your idea actually built or created. A lot of people will tell you it's too expensive, too insane, too "out-there", "nobody will like it". You need to be a master in persuasion and thick skinned at that. Howard Aiken rightly said:

“Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.”

If lots of people are agreeing with you, and you're not getting enough pertinent questions, it should send your alarm bells ringing. Anything truly original looks ugly at first, so be sure to watch for that strange weird idea that doesn't sit quite right. That stands out. Give it some time, look at it again. Picasso knew how to do this really well. Something really original can be unsettling, Be sensitive to that.

Move in unfamiliar circles:

It's pretty tough to invent something completely novel. Sometimes great innovation comes from applying some method to a totally new field or combing a few things together that have never really been thought of in that way before. That's why it's so important to learn things outside of your field. That's why great innovators have passions in many fields. Steve Jobs loved art, Richard Feynman loved music, as did Einstein, Benjamin Franklin influenced physics, Isaac Newton, Isaac Asimov..where do I even start? Move in unfamiliar circles.

Leonardo DaVinci (another awesomely productive and curious mind) said:

“Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.”

And that my friend, is a good place to begin and end :)

WIFI painting: NFC awesomeness

This is a beautiful piece of work from the TOUCH project: "Touch is a research project that investigates Near Field Communication (NFC), a technology that enables connections between mobile phones and physical things. We are developing applications and services that enable people to interact with everyday objects and situations through their mobile devices."

The WIFI light painting project:

"This project explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs. A four-metre tall measuring rod with 80 points of light reveals cross-sections through WiFi networks using a photographic technique called light-painting."

Haunting, beautiful, clever, creative....awesome stuff!

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.

Seriously, play.

photo credit: desbiens_jean "The essence of serious play is the challenge and thrill of confronting uncertainties...The challenge of converting uncertainty into manageable risks or opportunities explains why serious play is often the most rational behaviour for innovators". (Michael Schrage)

As a society, we are finally beginning to give play time the attention it deserves. It is being recognised as serious business, and so it should be. Play is how children learn social skills, make sense of the world they live in, discover new things about it, and invent, create and dream. There's nothing childish about those things. In fact all of that stuff is fundamental to innovation in businesses, factories, studios, hospitals, schools, banks...everywhere. There's even a conference for it.

Play for teams:

If you think that playtime is for kids, go out and buy a box of lego play dough and set an hour aside to re-discover the joy and importance of play. Then bring it into your workplace. It will make staff more productive, happier and more relaxed. It also leads to learning better team skills like voicing an opinion,giving feedback,taking the lead,letting someone else take the lead, for example. It gives permission to think without boundaries, considering weird and crazy ideas that end up making a lot of sense, and others that don't but were fun to play with. It gets people who don't work well together to address their differences and to learn to celebrate them. It's productive time.

I have often turned a workshop into playtime, and seen 40+ year old depressed, tired or annoyed looking C-level executives light up at the sight of lego and coloured pens. The meeting is then productive because we have a common language to work from. Because we can explore ideas without asking for permission. Because we can discover personal traits about each other. Because we can connect. If people in your meetings are not connecting, they're not productive. A whole host of hidden problems is about to rain down on your project. Get everything out in the open, all of the ideas, all of the concerns, all of the opinions. Address them all. And do it in a positive and fun environment.

"Being playful means taking risks, and risk takers sometimes fail". (Jon Kolko)

Ah yes. It does come with a price. Sometimes you will pick the wrong idea. Sometimes you will fail. This is why it's important to fail as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible. We can't help that we will fail sometimes, but we can get better at it. It means not having a culture of blame and dealing with things as a team. It's about learning from every mishap and adding to the body of knowledge and experience of the team. In fact trying things is often the only way to grow and improve. A bad idea can out to be a real winner in a different context. Be open. Be brave. Dare to try things. Prepare well. Set yourself up for success, and work fast. If you fail, recover quickly. Learn to do this, rather than being too afraid to try.

Play to be healthy:

“If we don’t take time to play, we face a joyless life of rigidity, lacking in creativity. The opposite of play isn’t work, but depression. If we’re going to adapt to changing economic and personal circumstances the way that nature armed us to do, then we have to find ourselves having some play time virtually every day.”

This is serious stuff. It can help clear your mind and give you perspective. If you have lost yourself in drawing silly little aliens for 20mins or modelling a car out of blu tak for an hour, you have probably succeeded in calming down. That in itself is a great thing. No pills required. No special method. Nobody else. If you play often enough, you can start to practice creativity, having new ideas, and being happier. There's no question that it will improve your life. It will help you think about things in new ways. And the best thing is, you are already an expect at it, you just have to remember how to play. It's beautifully easy and rewarding.

Play for innovation:

"Serious play is not an oxymoron; it is the essence of innovation." (Michael Schrage)

Lego has created "Serious Play" which is described as "an innovative, experiential process designed to enhance innovation and business performance. Based on research that shows that this kind of hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities, Lego serious play deepens the reflection process and supports an effective dialogue – for everyone in the organization". It's well worth a look. At ThoughtWorks we use a variety of games we have invented ourselves, or adapted to a situation. The "lean Lego game" is used to teach the Agile methodology, for example.

Play is fundamental to innovation and creative thinking. The principles of play behaviour and development can be directly applied to business. Check out the Stanford class on play and innovations, the handouts are pretty cool, and easy to use in our own environments.

Play for effortless work:

"When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity. So play with your intuition". (Linda Naiman)

It occurred to me after working very very hard for a few years, that I wasn't shining despite all the hard work. More importantly I wasn't enjoying myself. I took some time out and thought things through. It became apparent to me that there is no "play time" and there is no "work time". Both of these things need to overlap, more or less at different times, for me to be at my best. My yoga practice includes fun postures to explore, I doodle often, I make stuff out of other stuff, I take the time to go "wow" when I see something beautiful. I climb on top of things. I make faces at my friends.

And some days when I need more inspiration than usual, I'll skateboard instead of getting the train.

I'm a 33 year old woman with a Ph.D in computer science and a job as an experience designer that I take very seriously.

Play is serious stuff.

If you're not convinced (and if you are), Tim Brown has more food for thought - Enjoy.

Creativity in action

I watched the following videos this morning, and thought they were really uplifting, for different reasons. I thought I'd share these with you, and leave you to imagine how you could combine them all into something quite horrible or into something bloody marvellous! Enjoy. The wooden ball travels along a giant xylophone, and plays Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, by J.S. Bach. The incline of the xylophone ensures that tempo is respected. It's all in the name of advertising (to sell a mobile phone), but surely this is advertising at its best. (thanks to Rachel for sharing this)

Alexander Chen made the following awesome little video, using the NYC subway map to create music, each route intersection behaving like a sting on an instrument. Super creative as a concept, well thought out and beautifully executed:

Conductor: www.mta.me from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

Although this isn't the most imaginative or well executed round of real-object dominoes, it awakens the child in me, and makes me definitely want to do this one day...for fun and smiles. The coolest thing for me is the sound each different object makes.

I'm not usually a fan of the accordion, although I do appreciate the man who plays at St James station once in a while. This is really badass though.