Design for reality (1)

1
Design for Reality, Not Glory
2

• I think I could say this about most people in
  tech we are megalomaniacs. We want to build the
  best and the biggest. We are always designing our
  apps with scalability in mind. We tend to design
  for the largest possible audience.
• Every app that launches on TechCrunch always
  addresses a huge market. You never read about a
  product addressing a small community. Its always
  about the app with the biggest dreams going after
  the largest competitors.
• Just take a quick scroll through Dribbble to see
  my point. Its filled with generic chat apps and
  revolutionary social network redesigns are
  these really doing anything to develop a
  designers skills?
• I believe that designers take on projects with
  such an ambitious scale as a result of our egos.
• What designers dont realize though is that many
  of the worlds most well-known products didnt
  start with global ambitions. Rather, they often
  addressed a small, local need first and grew from
  there. Therefore, if you really want to develop
  your skills and produce a truly creative product,
  you will be much better off checking your ego and
  starting small.

3
Stop Inflating Your Ego

• In the book Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday uses
  past examples of famous figures both successful
  and unsuccessful to illustrate the adverse
  effects of the ego.
• While Holiday writes to all industries, not just
  design, designers will learn a lot from him.
• His book addresses the type of thinking that
  distracts us from designing a product for a small
  audience, which helps you and another five people
  instead of 100 million faceless people who you
  dont know personally.
• Designing with your ego creates a product that is
  diluted, unfocused, and just bland. Consider
  these well-known products that didnt give into
  big thinking in the beginning.

4

• Flickr began as a photo-sharing feature within an
  online game. Only after the product had been
  perfected did the team realize that it could be
  applied more broadly. In 2005, Flickr was
  acquired by Yahoo. Today, it has 51 million
  registered users worldwide.
• Ego is the enemy of what you want and of what
  you have Of mastering a craft. Of real creative
  insight. Of working well with others. Of building
  loyalty and support. Of longevity. Of repeating
  and retaining your success. It repulses
  advantages and opportunities. Its a magnet for
  enemies and errors. It is Scylla and Charybdis.?
  Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
• Get Out of Your Head!
•  
• Designers all have a tendency to turn their life
  into a story. We write a fantastic narrative of
  our past with ourselves at the center I helped
  design billion dollar companies or I worked for
  insert massive startup here and this
  distracts us from designing for reality.
• We often produce concept work to develop or show
  off our abilities as designers.
• What Im suggesting is to not let your ego guide
  you toward producing a concept for another
  billion-dollar startup. These companies became
  the way they are over long periods of refinement
  and being patient. Therefore we can only possibly
  provide an undeveloped opinion on redesigning
  their product.
• The only reason that we might strive to design
  for the best brands is to fulfill our own career
  narratives.
• As designers, we need to get out of our head and
  look instead to immediate local problems that
  call for unique design solutions. Not only will
  this direct our abilities toward solving real
  problems, but it will also make us better
  designers while were at it.

5

• There are often many lessons and opportunities
  surrounding us. However, if were caught up in
  the grandiose vision of our careers, these
  lessons will appear small or inconsequential, and
  we may miss them.
• If you think that taking on a small project is
  demeaning to the potential scale of your work,
  get out of your head. Keep in mind that there is
  no one to perform for. And quite frankly, much
  less people are keeping tabs on your career than
  you may think. In fact, its likely that no one
  is. This can be hard to digest when youre stuck
  inside your own head.
• Dont Linger on Past Successes
• When we reminisce about our past successes, we
  forget about the hours of work and execution that
  got us to where we are today. So instead of
  dreaming about your story, get back to work and
  out of your head. Start a new page daily, and
  eliminate any ideas of grandeur.
• I was trapped so terribly inside my own head
  that I was a prisoner to my own thoughts.  Ryan
  Holliday
• Be a Student
•  
• In order for your design work to grow, you must
  be able to learn from criticism. Participating in
  the dialogue of design communities, such as
  Dribbble, is valuable, but they can also shelter
  your work from the lessons of reality.

6

• The online design community is extremely
  supportive to one another. Its great that
  everyone can so easily join such a conversation.
  However, constantly looking for positive feedback
  will not drive us to learn, so we must be careful
  in how eagerly we participate.
• When you design for reality, clients and the
  public will be very hard on your work.
• Although it can be difficult to hear negative
  feedback, we must see this as an opportunity to
  learn. The designer who works for their ego will
  be defensive during these times and will likely
  reject the opinion of the offender. We must learn
  to accept such criticisms if we want our work to
  grow.
• The feedback loop between the designer and the
  client can make products that neither party could
  have ever made on their own.
• As designers, we must realize that we can learn
  from the needs and conditions of a real project
  in order to make something new. Whereas, the
  feedback loop online often recycles the same
  content over and over again.
• Top of Form
• Like what youre reading?
• Get the latest updates first.
• No spam. Just great design posts.

7

• Thinking Small and Local
•  
• In reading this, you might be wondering where to
  start. Designing for reality sounds great, but
  how do I get that first project? Or, if work is
  slow, what can I do to continue to grow?
• This is very much my point that often the
  answer to this is to whip up some great
  redesigns, and post them online in the hope that
  theyll lead to the next big thing. But, how can
  you direct your energy to designing for real life
  instead?
• Consider the challenge below.
•  
• Design for The Very Small
•  
• Instead of designing the next billion dollar chat
  app, what if you designed a chat app for five
  moms? What would that look like? Do you think
  something original would come out of it if you
  just focused on them?
• What would your social network look like if it
  was designed for the people in your building?
• What would a payment service app look like for a
  farmers market?
• How might a calendar registry app work for a day
  care?
• Would a restaurant use a better interface for how
  they seat customers?
• Could high school teachers benefit from an app to
  communicate with parents?
• How might a to-do list work for a small family?
• Lets face it, its all about our ego. We design
  to get recognition instead of designing to solve
  a real problem for a small group of people.
• I would argue that only designing for a
  successful Dribbble shot is thinking too small.
  It satisfies our ego, but wont get us anywhere.
  Would you have taken Facebook as a client when
  they were only addressing Harvard?

8

• Focus Your Design
• Gather five people in a niche and start designing
  a product just for them.
• Dont listen to your ego encouraging you to get
  likes and recognition. Focus on making the best
  possible product for those five people.
• Heres six points you should focus on.
• Involve real users in your designs as soon as
  possible.
• Solicit feedback, and consider how your product
  can improve.
• Dont worry about scalability.
• Kill aesthetics. Yes the aesthetic side of the
  design feeds our ego. The first focus should be
  getting a few users.
• Avoid feature creep. Local problems can be
  complex too, but try to keep your solution
  simple.
• Make sure your ego doesnt creep up on you. Every
  time you start to really love something you
  worked on you should be wary. Your ego must be
  hiding behind your love.
• Lets Work to Kill Our Egos
• Whatever is next for us failure or success we
  must always continue to remember to avoid our
  egos.
• No matter what awaits us down the road, our egos
  will make everything more difficult.
• However, failure is the one thing that our egos
  will help to make permanent, unless we are
  willing to be students as we move forward, and
  learn from our mistakes.

9

• We must take every moment as an opportunity to
  grow, not boost our careers.
• Every great designer has experienced difficult
  times. You may just not realize it because all
  you see is their polished Dribbble accounts. What
  they likely arent telling you is that when they
  have failed or found hardship they take some
  kind of benefit from it.
• Finally, keep in mind that many of the most
  successful people do not spread their work and
  successes around. So, look for people in your
  design community who are quiet about their
  success, or failure, and see what you can learn
  from them.
• Published on https//www.buzzinteractive.co/desig
  n-for-reality-not-glory/