Trusting the artist

Ahmet Ertegun – arguably for a long time the greatest record executive of them all – told me that unless you’re 100% sure the artist is wrong, go with their vision. – Jason Flom

True for designers as well, in my experience.

Design Sprint Kit

Great set of resources for running a sprint: Design Sprint Kit.

This is the highly, highly distilled and refined version of what designers at Google (especially [Knapp, Kowitz, and Zeratsky](http://www.thesprintbook.com)) have been developing for years.

Absentee futures

> We congratulate ourselves on the accomplishment of democracy…But regardless of who votes, what is the real meaning of any such choices if the alternatives among which we are selecting are underimagined, or clichéd – or simply absent? – Stuart Candy

My most influential role these days is less “tastemaker” and “decider” than simply “option generator”.

Design and decisions

Design is just decision-making with visual aids.

Designing better futures for Syria

My own career goal is to “[help people think about the future](http://bob.ryskamp.org/design/).”

I can’t imagine a better application of that than [a group from the University of Washington](http://syria.ischool.uw.edu/) which [helps Syrian refugee children design a better future for themselves and their families](https://slate.adobe.com/cp/zlibu/).

> We asked the participants to work in pairs to fuel creativity and help ease literacy barriers. They used LEGO Mini-Figures and Bricks, art supplies, color pens, and FUJI Instamax Cameras to create the devices…

> Magical devices often depict means of transportation…Mobility is a challenge in Za’atari for different reasons–many people have physical disabilities, exasperated by war trauma, and there is no public transport to assist with lack of roads…

> Teams also designed devices similar to existing technology, such as Google glass, but that address particular needs in the camps. One team, who called themselves “Future’s Butterflies,” designed glasses that help discover and cure diseases.

Research and believability in design

> I always believe in research. No matter what the subject matter is. You cannot do enough research, because so much believability will come out of what’s really there.

– [John Lasseter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neJFuTKWzfc)

Calvin, rapid prototyper

[](http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2015/01/26)

Sending out the dogs

“Send out all your dogs and one might return with prey” – [Werner Herzog](http://kottke.org/15/01/24-pieces-of-life-advice-from-werner-herzog)

True of ideas and designs as well.

Why designers shouldn’t be smart

Recently [Bruce Mau](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Mau) came to our office (I know, right?!). Bruce is known for his writing, including several “manifestos” over the years, and he asked everyone in the room to write their own manifesto in 3 minutes (he said he used to give people 6 minutes and they were all finished early).

The first line in my manifesto was “Be the dumbest person in the room”, which got a laugh from Bruce and prompted some followup questions from people around me. I’d written it as a bit of a lark, but the more I think about it, the more important I think it is. So why is it important for a designer to be the dumbest person in the room?

First, of course, it means that you’re always around people you can learn from. Great design is based on collecting insights from the world. If you are the expert in the room, where will you get your new insights? Always surround yourself with people whose experience and knowledge exceeds your own in important ways.

Being dumb also keeps you humble. Every designer knows how it feels to watch someone try and fail to use your design. The biggest temptation in that moment is to tell yourself “that’s just one person, and really this test isn’t representative,” and write off their experience as a fluke. After all, didn’t Steve Jobs ignore his customers? ([Nope](http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2013/12/19/myth-busted-steve-jobs-did-listen-to-customers/), and [NOPE](http://zurb.com/article/588/hiding-in-the-bushes-with-steve-jobs)). But [Henry Ford did, to poor results](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=5294)). Your confidence has to come not from your own opinions, but from the success real people have with your product.

Finally, when designers rely too much on their own experience and knowledge, they get lazy. When I’ve worked on a problem for a long time, and feel like I know it well, I’m less likely to do the research legwork needed for inspiration, less likely to ask other people their thoughts, and more likely to settle on the first idea that comes to mind. Conversely, a brand new problem forces me to start from scratch, with eyes and mind wide open to new possibilities (the next line in my 3-minute manifesto read: “When you get too good, start over”).

So really, the problem isn’t with *being* smart–it’s ok to get good grades, kids–but with *acting* smart. The best designers I know approach problems with the openness, humility, and excitement of a child seeing something for the first time. They acknowledge and work against their biases, and never let their intelligence get in the way of the right answer.

Utopia and its discontents

I’m a huge fan of Neal Stephenson, and also of his newest project [Hieroglyph](http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/), which aims to inspire future scientific breakthroughs with optimistic near-future science fiction. But I found two critiques of the approach quite compelling this week.

First, Virginia Postrel (whose writing on design I’ve enjoyed in the past), writes that “[Peter Thiel Is Wrong About the Future](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-08/peter-thiel-is-wrong-about-the-future)” (I’m reading his book as well), and mentions Hieroglyph as similarly misled:

> The dystopian science fiction Stephenson’s Project Hieroglyph aims to counter isn’t the cause of our cultural malaise. It’s a symptom. The obstacle to more technological ambitions isn’t our idea of the future. It’s how we think about the present and the past…

> The reason mid-20th-century Americans were optimistic about the future wasn’t that science-fiction writers told cool stories about space travel…*People believed the future would be better than the present because they believed the present was better than the past*. They constantly heard stories — not speculative, futuristic stories but news stories, fashion stories, real-estate stories, medical stories — that reinforced this belief.

It’s the same ambivalence toward today’s progress that [Louis CK rails about](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E), and that [many science fiction writers and futurists recognize](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=5326). We do live in amazing times, yet the dominant cultural reaction is frustration and dissatisfaction. We don’t often celebrate the incredible progress we’ve achieved. As [David Brooks once wrote](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=481), “Americans have always been united less by a shared past than by the shared dream of a better future.”

The Guardian also [confronts the Hieroglyph collection](http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/oct/10/science-fiction-utopia-wilful-ignorance), calling the stories “built on willful ignorance”:

> But there is also a deliberate naivety to Project Hieroglyph. Stories such as Cory Doctorow’s The Man Who Sold the Moon are a veritable hymn to the culture of Silicon Valley and tech start-ups, but deftly wave away the part these cultures play in today’s corporate capitalism and all the inequalities that come with it.

I agree with their assessment of the best stories:

> The best contributions to Hieroglyph are the least optimistic, and the best attuned to the human reality that technology so often obscures. Entanglement by Vandana Singh and Madeline Ashby’s By the Time We Get to Arizona both look at the impact of new technologies in developing nations and among the world’s poorest people. They also tackle the obvious problem of technological innovation, the looming menace of climate change, environmental degradation and resource depletion that go hand in hand with new technologies.

I still believe there is a role for optimistic science fiction in changing the world. However it’s always good to be mindful of the present and past when thinking about the future, and to include messy and uncomfortable situations in even the most polished vision. The real future will be both based in today’s world and include a lot of today’s problems, and people are wise enough to recognize when those aspects are missing from stories about the future.