What does it mean to be a resilient designer?
On cultivating resiliency throughout your career.
Recently I connected with an old work friend for coffee. I’m at an age now where a lot of my peers have become managers, and are in the position of hiring designers themselves.
A question was posed: “What is the quality you appreciate most in a designer?”
The answer that came to my mind was resilience.
If I were to take a poll of all the people I know hiring designers and ask them the qualities they want, there would likely be some common themes: articulate, empathetic, inquisitive, creative, plays well with others, and so on. Few would arrive at resilient. The concept of bouncing back, or being ‘tough’, isn’t part of our standard design discourse.
Since that conversation I’ve been thinking about what exactly resilience means in the context of design, and how we don’t emphasize this practice nearly enough.
What does it mean to practice resilience?
Why is it that some of us can’t seem to bounce back from the inevitable challenges that come with a job in UX? It’s resilience. Strong resiliency skills don’t remove the feelings or stressors, rather just reduce the time it takes to process information and move forward.
Resiliency: An ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change; the psychological capacity to adapt to stressful circumstances and to bounce back from adverse events.
There is a uniqueness to this space and this job that warrants this as a talking point. If you do creative work you expose yourself to criticism and failure on a very regular basis. Understanding how to work through challenges is important.
7 key skills of resilient designers
1. Not taking it personally
It’s much easier to critique than it is to produce.
Not everybody will like your idea, or agree with your solution. You will have to do 78 versions of something, incorporate feedback that doesn’t make sense, and have someone rip apart your work from the seams.
The resilient designer knows that this all means very little. They have learned to detach emotion from outcomes. Don’t like it? No problem. The idea well runs deep.
Designers have a unique skillset because they can take disconnected minutia and visualize it into something real. Create a narrative out of data points. Communicate something tangible from a sliver of an idea or a wall full of post-its.
Not everybody can do it.
Resiliency means acknowledging that skillset, and letting go of the emotional attachment to your work.
(Seriously…let it go!)
2. Reframing problems
One of the things UXers do best is frame problems in unique and creative ways — it’s second nature to a seasoned pro.
Cognitive psychologists have long studied human beings’ ability to reframe a problem and ease psychological discomfort. The very act of reframing a problem changes the way we experience it. If an initial reaction is negative or emotionally charged, forcing ourselves to speak or think about things in a more constructive way and actively rewriting the narrative has been proven to change our response.
Resilient people tend to be active copers. For example, instead of dwelling on an issue and asking “Why me?”, they might ask “How can we improve the situation?”
The resilient designer has figured out how to apply this well-honed skill of problem framing across all challenging workplace scenarios.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking used to create them.” — Albert Einstein
3. Throwing away the concept of ‘wasted time’
Reality: you’ll do lots of work that never sees the light of day. For some people it’s a tough pill to swallow. But it happens to everyone. Projects get parked, roadmaps change, and months of work is put on a shelf and never built nor shipped.
Taking it in stride and appreciating the value in what you’ve learned along the way will ease the irritation.
The resilient designer can see the value in all experiences, good and bad. The work that never shipped was valuable for you personally.
4. Saying no (but in the right way)
There is one thing I’ve come to realize: you will spend your entire career saying no. To all kinds of things — unreasonable timelines, bloated features, questionable requirements, ill-advised feedback, usability risks, dark patterns, rework.
It happens. And because it’s your job to always advocate for the user’s experience, sometimes it is draining. It’s hard, and I still struggle with this one a lot, but saying no is a thing you will have to do.
Resilience means always choosing to speak up, saying no when you have to, advocating for what is right, and always striving to do so in a diplomatic way.
TIP: Learning how to say no with grace can be a tough process. Arming yourself with research and learning how to articulate yourself well are the best tools you have to get better at this.
Here are the two best books I’ve found on these topics, and I go back to both of them often:
- Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
- Articulating Design Decisions by Tom Greever
5. Accepting that you don’t always have answers
I can’t tell you the countless times I’ve thought an idea, process or problem should be approached in a particular way, only to discover that I was mistaken. Or the times I simply couldn’t solve a problem at all.
Mistakes and challenges are the best opportunities for growth. If you screw up, own it. If you do not know the answer, say so. That’s resilience. “I was wrong” and “I need help” are some of the most powerful phrases that will ever come out of your mouth.
6. Finding meaning in your own way
Finding meaning and purpose in work and life is one of the key factors of resiliency, as noted in research by expert Glenn Schiraldi.
Being resilient in design means finding your own ways to stay inspired and full of purpose. Especially when creativity is part of your job.
There’s an ebb and flow to design work, and there will be moments of ‘meh’. Feeding your brain is important. Do it in a way that works for you. Don’t rely on your job, your manager, or your day-to-day deliverables to scratch that itch.
The resilient designer has found their own unique methods for professional growth, intellectual stimulation, and creativity. Your job depends on your ability to do that, and it’s worth figuring out what works for you.
7. Finding humour in absurdity
I once had a manager with an exceptional sense of humour. Anytime there was a project that was off the rails, or a really difficult stakeholder, or I was horribly frustrated by something, he had a special knack of being able to get me to laugh at the absolute ridiculousness of it all.
It made such a remarkable difference.
I take my work very seriously; a lot of us do. But when the fight feels exhausting there is no better cure than a little perspective and a belly laugh.
Resilience in design means always looking for humour in a difficult situation.
