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Hone the Skill of Slowing Down to Speed Up

Culture of Design means the entire team (ideally the entire company) understands what happens before, during, and after a user interacts with a product. It means they will not only question the challenges during the use of a product but also the steps along the way and afterward.

It means understanding that design has to incorporate loading time and what a product looks like in the environment it's used in. Are you creating a product for logging errors in an oil field with terrible reception in the bright sun? Or are you creating a monitoring system for professionals to check on a monument under lights at night, where a bright screen would interfere with adjusting to the dark environment and being able to perceive the color temperature?

As a designer, are you curious, empathetic, and imaginative enough to fully step into the shoes of your user and think through each step of a user's journey around a product? One can only really imagine a user if they are good at stepping back from their own lives and observing. There is a bit of mindfulness to this observation, and with time, you begin to do this second nature and observe others in the same way.

Why did I pick this routine? What happens if I change this habit? How does it affect everything else? Sometimes it's as obvious as good sleep hygiene, other times it's choosing to wear shoes instead of going barefoot under your WFH desk (hint: if you need help feeling like you are officially at work, shoes do help). As a design leader, I believe everyone can benefit from honing their skills of observation. I practice mindfulness in little activities throughout my day and believe this strengthens the muscle of observation. The true test is if you can observe without judgment or jumping to a conclusion, being curious enough to ask why and not immediately assuming you know the answer.

However, we work in tech, and tech moves fast! Slowing down to speed up sounds insane. Taking half of a project timeline for discovery is just not possible, right? Wrong. The more you slow down to observe for small amounts of time, the better you get. Think of this as a muscle; if you lift heavy in short spurts, you will see results if you challenge that muscle more and more each time. Strengthen your observation skills by digging deeper.

It can be hard to balance this slow down and observe with the fast pace of projects, deadlines, and other priorities—but that in itself is a test of mindfulness and slowing down to speed up.

Take a step back and see when there is a need for more discovery or when it's time to iterate and then talk to users. It is a balancing act, and often in a project, more time in one area means less time for another at the cost of "actual design time." However, I am a firm believer that slowing down and observing is 100% actual design time. I would never run a 10k without also slowing down during training to observe my gait, my pace, how my body feels, etc. So why do we not allow the same in the design process?

Thanks for taking the time to read how having a hippie heart makes you a good designer. I started this blog as a space to build up a library of my thoughts and observations after 15 years of design and finding myself looking for a job for the first time ever, where jobs in tech are few and far between, and there is a slew of candidates. If you are reading this as a hiring manager or job seeker, know I have been on both sides of this. Both are busy, you feel like you do not have enough time to fit it all in, and the clock is ticking. But I encourage you to take a little time and practice slowing down and observing the sound your coffee maker makes as it brews or the rate the temperature rises while washing your hands at the sink. Whatever it is, just see if you can dig deeper and notice more.


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