There's something about what we're doing at GDS that's making us unlearn our habits.
Two designers recently have talked to me about how they've had to change how they work since being at GDS.
One who was surprised by my approach to not being that interested in design work until they had found someone who could build it. I'm paraphrasing but they said, "I thought that was odd at first. But it's taught me to work with people who are not designers and it's taught me to think about more than design work when designing things. It's also made me better at my job because I know how to get things made." (Something like that.)
Another who was used to working in prototyping software and now mostly uses a mixture of sketches and code. Paraphrasing again, "I realised that too often we were set up to make a prototype and that's what we optimised to build. Now we're making a real thing and the prototype is just one stage of that." (Something like that.)
Organisations survive on habits. They find what works and they make that a habit so it can be repeated. Manufactured. Sold. And then those habits can become the problem, as Shirky says "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution."
Often when you're trying to fix a problem what you need is to do things differently. To break the habits a little.
What helps us here is the focus on user needs. What is the user trying to do? How can we help them do that as simply as possible? Forget the habits and structures and mental models that exist, even if they exist in how you work, find the user need and then do that. Focus on that.
Because maybe the way you work is part of the problem.
This feels like three half posts made into one, but anyway.
A teeny bit related this blog post from the brilliant Leisa Reichelt "There is no UX, there is only UX."
Anyway.
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