Share the weird sh*t

Get weird. Very often the best ideas come from an unexpected direction and there are few things more frustrating than a conservative brainstorm. If you’re unafraid of pushing things it gives the people around you permission to take some risks. Yes, you need to take in account real-world issues like timeline and budget but if you want to get somewhere faster you need to open your stride. You can always scale back an idea that's too big but it'll take you longer to get where you're going if you're taking tiny, little, baby steps. 

You'll get some rejection but it's better to get a reaction than to be ignored. Years ago, when I was a political cartoonist, I received my first piece of hate mail and I was so bummed I sat down with my editor to talk about it. I felt like I'd failed. Patiently he explained that hate mail was a measure of success. My cartoon prompted someone to take time out of their day to articulate their opinion and my job was, in essence, generating dialog. It was a valuable lesson. Take a stand, be specific and give people something to react to. You won't please everyone and your work will suffer if you try. 

There are tons of reasons we give ourselves to be conservative and an equal number of reasons to embrace the big ideas or convert obstacles into positive constraints. Look for the opportunity hidden in every obstacle or excuse. We don't have much money. Fine, that's an opportunity to focus your costly feature set. We don't have time to think about new ideas. Okay, but if you're struggling to make the existing idea work maybe reevaluating will save you time in the long run. I don't want to look stupid. Fair enough, qualify your suggestion with something like, "This may not fit within the timeline but maybe it'll lead to other ideas..." or "here's a crazy idea..."

The big, bold ideas will lead to better ideas so, go ahead, release the Kraken. 

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Be foolish

Leave your fear of looking foolish at the door so you can spend more time generating ideas and less time worrying what people will think of you. Risk looking foolish. Not all ideas are going to be mind-blowing. Or even good. The path to good ideas means you’ll need to suggest, and remove, the bad ones quickly and without fear or judgement. Be willing to share the bad ideas. 

Lead by example. If you’re willing to look foolish it levels the playing field and lets everyone know they can speak their minds without fear of judgement. Have you ever been to a party where everyone is polite and restrained? It's pleasant until one person arrives who is so comfortable in their own skin that it gives everyone else permission to relax and have more fun. Be that person. You don't need to be a extrovert and you don't need to be over-the-top to set this example. Just be engaged and willing to challenges people's expectations.

Have some fun, for crying out loud, and don't take yourself so seriously.

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Share your bad ideas

Seeing is believing. Sometimes the path to resolution, and evolution, of an idea means sharing your bad ideas. Yours and the clients. Sharing the good and bad,  and soliciting responses, will tune your understanding of what is important to someone. And oftentimes taking risk on a bad idea will to a good idea.

Don't want to risk looking stupid in front of your client by showing them something incomplete or half-baked? That's makes sense but, remember, you control how you present your ideas. There's a big difference between showing a client some unresolved ideas and showing a client those same ideas but prefacing them with, "I didn't spend much time on these but I wanted to try something different to see where it might lead." 

I'm not saying you should present all bad ideas. If you're making a final presentation to stakeholders and they expect to see something resolved you probably want to leave the bad ideas out of the presentation. Use your judgement. 

At some point a client will ask you to do something that you think is a bad idea and, despite your genius, the best thing to do is to show them what they ask for. Worst case scenario: you discover that you’re not the genius you thought you were. Best case: the client sees first-hand that their idea doesn’t work and they trust you more. In either case you’ll learn a little more about the project by embracing the request and trying it out.

This doesn’t need to be a source of stress. If you’re working with a new client budget for iteration. It will improve the quality of your work and make your clients happier.

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Get your gut checked regularly

Gut checks are frequent, quick, focused tests of your ideas. Invite someone to give you a quick, gut-level reaction to a work-in-progress.You want an emotional or intuitive reaction that helps you clarify any bias you have as the creator. Go ahead and tell them you're just doing a gut check. The shorter their response, the better. It's not a brainstorm, it’s a fast tool to check your assumptions.

Ask a question so the feedback is focused. Use simple, direct questions and insist on simple, direct answers. 

Example questions:

• What’s the first thing you notice?
• What is the most important thing on the screen?
• What’s the first emotion that comes to mind when you see this?
• Would you trust this?
• Is this funny?

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Keep asking why

Wikipedia calls The 5 Whys “...an iterative question-asking technique.” The idea is that you repeatedly ask yourself, or your client/partner/product owner ‘Why?’ as a way to better understand the issue you are addressing. It’s a useful skill when interviewing clients about their feedback or goals for a design. I can't overstate the value of this tool. I use it working with clients, in interviews with people I admire, with my students to uncover the problems they're trying to solve and even in vanilla (non-design) relationships.

Think of it as a strategy for converting an opinion or vague goal into something you can use. Yes, you'll sounds like a child, or a therapist, but there's a reason they ask questions. They're looking for answers. And if you're doing your job as a designer, so are you. This tool is so simple you can use it everyday to extract specific, actionable, details from general statements. This is also useful for negotiating creative space for yourself when a client is getting too specific. NOTE: Sometimes your Why may be better suited as a What or a How. Use your interrogatives and dig for information! 

Example:

Client: "Make that button blue."

1. Why? Because I like blue.
2. What about blue do you like? I don't know. I just like it.
3. What does blue represent to you? Uh, the sky. And water.
4. What do you like about the sky and water? They're relaxing.
5. Why is that important? Because I want the user to feel relaxed.

Action: Now that you know the goal is a relaxed user you can ask the client whether they're okay with alternate solutions as long as they meet that goal.

www.tools-not-rules.com