Learn, Unlearn, Relearn: Designing with Context
It’s not what you don’t know that will get you into trouble. It’s what you think you know that actually isn’t true that will get you into trouble. Mark Twain said it very eloquently.
Most designers think they know everything. They can start designing for anyone anywhere with the five-year experience that they have in their disposal. They sure know how to pull those pixels and utilise familiar patterns.
“Oh sure, users will know how to login. This is a very common pattern.”
“I’m thinking we should design with a certain kind of grid… otherwise things will fall over the place.”
“Well, this typography sure looks better.”
“Let’s use this UI library. It will make our job easier.”
Except nothing of the above statements are necessarily true.
Those are assumptions. And assumptions kill. Between the speed that is required, and the pressure to do the right thing, there is one possible way to make things just right: context, and context needs a fair amount of research.
Most designers know how to push pixels. They know how to make a prototype. They know how to Dribbble. They know their tools of trade very well. But most of them also fail to understand context.
Most of the things I already know when designing are easily put off by a new context.
Just take a look at this table that I found inside this book (excellent book, by the way.)
If you were designing for western-oriented experiences all your life, then you’re missing out a lot. When you try to launch the same design in the Islamic middle-eastern countries, you’re up for looking like a fool.
Your calendar UI will be wrong, because weekends are not Saturday and Sunday like you know it. It’s Friday and Saturday. Your content for a Sunday promo or itinerary will be wrong, because people don’t go on vacay on a Sunday. Putting on a Sunday clothing means a working attire.
Or imagine this conversation. You are about to launch a service like Redmart in Jakarta, Indonesia. In Singapore, they deliver with vans. Do you think vans will work in traffic jams in Jakarta? Well yeah, to some extent, but motorcycles and bikes are the way to go if you were going to deliver a big volume everyday. Motorcycles can go faster and deeper into the inside streets. My friend over at Redmart was surprised by the idea. “Can you really load a lot of things on a motorbike? Is it legal?”
We responded, “Have you been to Indonesia, yet?”
He said no.
In 2012, I was designing for Bukalapak, an Indonesian C2C commerce. We were thinking of including a credit card flow. The CEO was apprehensive of that idea. I was baffled. “Hey, credit card is the easiest and most efficient way to pay.” I realised that I assumed a lot in my statement. But then I saw this stat from McKinsey:
Cash is still king in Indonesia, and most developing markets. It is growing, but we need to cater the king first. The focus changed to: How do we design a seamless cash on delivery transaction?
The other way I found when I lived in Indonesia is how Uber drivers often expect tipping in terms of cash from their passengers. They will give riders extra rating if they receive tipping. Surprising, right? I wonder if Uber listens to this, they could easily make a suggested tipping interface just like Lyft or Grab, and they will probably still win today.
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Learn, Unlearn and Relearn
I can’t stress this enough to any designer or product team. Learn, unlearn and relearn. Every product is different. Implementation-wise, you can try off-the-shelf solutions, but for product, sometimes you have to reinvent the wheel. Forget what you have learned. Unlearn. Then just like a first-grader, re-learn everything.
