Success is increasing your rate of failure

A designer’s goal is to get stakeholders to say or think this often. But maybe not this harshly.

Getting this type of feedback is a good thing, because it implies two things:

1. You’re shipping designs constantly.
2. You’re collecting feedback to improve.

You won’t get it right the first time. Thankfully, iteration is baked into digital work.

I used to draft architectural plans by hand. I would spend hours leaning over my drafing table, checking and double-checking my setup to draw even a simple line. There was little room for error, so all of my marks on the paper needed to be precise. I carried this “bad” habit of being precise into digital crafting: I make sure that my designs are not only functional, but also highly polished.

It’s a bad habit because I do this even during exploration.

Here’s the thing, digital crafting is forgiving. You can copy, paste, and undo. Need to try a different shade of blue? Just make a copy and tweak it. Need to revisit the design option from 3 months ago? Check the version history. The canvas is infinite, make as many variations as you need to get the design right.

Succes is increasing your rate of failure.

Ideating in low fidelity also helps soften the blow of a harsh critique. Because your designs look like crap, people focus more on the functionality than getting hung up on the visuals. But not always. I once warned someone testing our app that our mockups were super low fidelity. When I pulled it up, he simply said, “Wow, no kidding.” Lol.

Be less precise. Make something, even if it's wrong. Iterate later.

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P.S. I forgot how to write cursive after going to architecture school.