Designing in the storm

A product designer is someone who knows how to digest a problem and think through it, then come up with solutions that can be tested.

They, of course, use various tools and methods to accomplish this. User research, low and high-fidelity ideation, coding or not, prototyping or not, and a hundred other decisions fit into the toolbox of such a designer.

This is different from industrial product designers—those who make things out of atoms instead of bits. But the principle still holds.

Having such a mindset provides resiliency against the changes in markets, and technology. To be able to sit with a problem, understand its ramifications, and test solutions, is at the heart of good design.

In a recent call I was working with my team on a concept. One of my colleagues offered a suggestion. In the back of my mind I wasn’t sure it’d work. But instead of shutting it down we tried it out, live on the call, and moved things around to see if the data made sense in that way. It did.

This scenario has played out a thousand times over the last few years, where I doubt something, but often give it a try and learn. Happy little accidents, as Bob Ross would say, can lead to new understandings.

As those with an interest in design watch the world change under them, holding to the core principle of thinking through problems can offer an anchor in the tumult we’re all facing.

If you’re a designer feeling this, feel free to reach out. We can all benefit from helping each other navigate through this.