Journey
The importance of zooming out in the design process
Sometimes we spend so much time crafting the details of our designs that we forget to step back from our tools and think about our work more strategically.
You’re busy as hell.
Or at least you want to believe you are incredibly busy. You have a handful of designs to finish by the end of the week, and you know yourself too well; you better get going as soon as possible or you’ll be late.
We look busy.
We say we’re busy.
Sometimes we even fabricate busy.
But are you really using your time as wisely as you can? Or are you just rushing around for the sake of it?
Zooming in to be able to zoom out
Design, in my mind, is the process of zooming in and zooming out of a certain problem, multiple times. The way I operate best in a design project is when I am able to balance these two roles in one: the role of doer (the hands-on designer who is really close to the details), and the role of evaluator (the creative director who is not attached to any particular detail and therefore can make more impartial judgements).
But you have to zoom in to be able to zoom out.
You zoom in to get as familiar with the details as possible. You zoom in to learn about requirements. You zoom in when you test multiple solutions for the same problem, when you spend hours in the design software carefully crafting an interface pixel by pixel, or when you prototype an interaction representing its most granular details.
And then you zoom out when you step away from your computer and talk to people about the challenge you are having. You zoom out when you take a break from design tools, when you test your designs with real users, or simply when you give your brain some time to process that problem through a new perspective.
One thing cannot exist without the other.
If you zoom in too much and never zoom out, chances are you will get too tactical too quickly.
If you zoom out too much and never zoom in, well… you might never actually deliver what you are supposed to.
Being busy just for the sake of being busy means you get so obsessed with deciding between a hamburger vs. a horizontal menu, that you forget to stop to think whether you need to add a menu to your app in the first place.
Zooming in and focusing on a problem is relatively easy for us designers. The challenge resides in stepping back and judging the designs you are creating with fresh eyes and different perspectives.
Here are a few ways I like to force myself to zoom out.
#1 Force your brain to be idle
When you are a designer, your brain will naturally use idle moments between work sprints to process information in the back burner and eventually find solutions for the problems you have been focusing on. In reality, idle moments are crucial for creativity.
The human brain is a powerful machine, but you have to enable it to have idle moments in the first place. Stop pulling up your phone at every single opportunity, and give your brain some time to surprise you.
“Humans have daydreamed for thousands of years, and yet, these days, spare moments are filled with using our smartphones and other devices — scrolling through social media, listening to podcasts, responding to emails — leaving us little time to let our minds wander. This may seem a small change, but its effect, on the way our minds work and on our collective creativity, could be far-reaching. In fact, it could be hindering your ability to come up with fresh, innovative ideas.” — Source
Some people turn to meditation to help; I’ve been using Headspace for a few weeks and enjoying it quite a lot. But nothing replaces the serenity of a quiet commute — for me it is the most productive time of day.
#2 Look at your designs from a different perspective
Sometimes all your brain needs is to be tricked:
- Print your designs. Shifting from screen to paper can give your brain the break it needs from the pixels.
- Test your design in a different screen. This is ridiculously simple, but sometimes we forget to look at our mobile designs on a mobile device, or to simply open our desktop designs in a different monitor that’s not the one sitting at our desks.
- Open your designs at home (or in a coffee shop, or any other place that is not your everyday work station). Shifting the context in which you are thinking about the problem can stimulate your brain to look for new solutions.
#3 Present your designs out loud
Try presenting your design to someone else — whether a colleague that’s working on the same project, or someone completely random.
Sometimes your brain will only be able to process whether something sounds reasonable or not when you actually say it out loud. Pay attention to the things you are saying, and you will naturally identify the things that don’t “sound right” coming out of your mouth, or that you are simply not fully convinced of.
#4 Show it around
On a similar note, showing your designs to colleagues around you can be the perfect mental break from all those endless hours in front of a screen. Invite people over to your desk, or print it out and take it to their desks — but make sure you pay attention to the very first thing they say or ask. Interesting insights can come out of those discussions, as long as you are willing to open your mind to the different perspectives your colleagues will bring. Keep in mind that informal user testing with your company’s employees should not replace testing it with actual users.
#5 Write a summary of your design concept
Whenever I feel like I’m stuck in the nitty gritty of a certain design problem/solution, I open a text editor and try to write down the 3 most important aspects of the design concept I’m working on.
Resist the temptation to write a longer list; focus on the top 3 points that you need to get across if you were to explain your design to your CEO (or someone else that doesn’t have a lot of time available).
What are the key talking points? In what order did you list them?
This exercise can help you prioritize what’s really important, and even eliminate other pieces from your design.
Hope these tips can help make sure you’re stepping away from your designs regularly, to be able to think more strategically about it. Anything else you do that can help other readers?