iteration
So that you can get feedback on it and make it better
Fascinatingly, one of the other big complaints people had about agile is no iteration. I don't understand how being in an agile environment makes people less iterative, but somehow that seems to be the case. And I think it's because people misunderstand and think that agile is just about putting features out faster, and not about the important part, which is getting something in front of users faster so that you can get feedback on it and make it better.
The most rewarding iterations
Initial designs for sophisticated software applications are invariably complicated, even when developed by competent engineers. Truly good solutions emerge after iterative improvements or after redesigns that exploit new insights, and the most rewarding iterations are those that result in program simplifications.
Evolutions of this kind, however, are extremely rare in current software practice—they require time-consuming thought processes that are rarely rewarded. Instead, software inadequacies are typically corrected by quickly conceived additions that invariably result in the well-known bulk.
To anticipate all the uses and abuses
Success depends wholly on the anticipation and obviation of failure, and it is virtually impossible to anticipate all the uses and abuses to which a product will be subjected until it is in fact used and abused not in the laboratory but in real life. Hence, new products are seldom even near perfect, but we buy them and adapt to their form because they do fulfill, however imperfectly, a function that we find useful.
When we make a model and realize it's rubbish
Much of the design process is a conversation, a back-and-forth as we walk around the tables and play with the models. He doesn't like to read complex drawings. He wants to see and feel a model. He's right. I get surprised when we make a model and then realize it's rubbish, even though based on the CAD renderings it looked great.
He loves coming in here because it's calm and gentle. It's a paradise if you're a visual person. There are no formal design reviews, so there are no huge decision points. Instead we can make the presentations fluid. Since we iterate every day and never have dumb-ass presentations, we don't run into major disagreements.
Building is never a straight line
You might think that Mario 64 was built with tickets and sprints, but, according to interviews, there was no master plan, only the principles that the game should feel good and be fun. They started with just Mario in a small room, and tuned his animations and physics until he felt nice and responsive. After that, the levels were also created as they went, with the designers, developers, and director going back and forth using sketches and prototypes.
Building like this is never a straight line. Ideas and code get left on the cutting room floor because part of innovation is questioning whether what you made should exist. The process is cyclical and iterative, looking something like this.
Between the two spaces
It is widely accepted that creative design is not a matter of first fixing the problem and then searching for a satisfactory solution concept; instead it seems more to be a matter of developing and refining together both the formulation of the problem and ideas for its solution, with constant iteration of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation processes between the two “spaces” – problem and solution.
The game discovering itself
We like to think about this process as the game discovering itself over time. Because as iterators, rather than designers, it’s our job to simply play the game, listen to it, feel it, and kind of feel out what it seems to want to become - and just follow the trails of what’s fun.
Deciding what to design
We Don’t Really Know the Goal When We Start
The most serious model shortcoming is that the designer often has a vague, incompletely specified goal, or primary objective. In such cases, the hardest part of design is deciding what to design.
I came to realize that the most useful service I was performing for my client was helping him decide what he really wanted.
Today, we recognize that rapid prototyping is an essential tool for formulating precise requirements. Not only is the design process iterative; the design-goal-setting process is itself iterative. Knowing complete product requirements up front is a quite rare exception, not the norm. Therefore, goal iteration must be considered an inherent part of the design process.
Embracing the mess
Design is non-linear. At Figma, we often talk about “embracing the mess,” and that really means leaning into the chaos and complexity that makes the design process what it is. Even once you have the seedling of an idea, you need to explore and iterate, then pull back and evaluate to see what’s working and what’s not. Sometimes you’ll scrap an idea after a brainstorm session, and other times you’ll get pretty far with a concept, but still need different perspectives and input to move forward.
Models and iterations
Every month or so, Manock and Oyama would present a new iteration based on Jobs's previous criticisms. The latest plaster model would be dramatically unveiled, and all the previous attempts would be lined up next to it. That not only helped them gauge the design's evolution, but it prevented Jobs from insisting that one of his suggestions had been ignored.
The surprising effectiveness of writing and rewriting
An Article by Matt Webb- The act of writing the first draft creates new “essential data” that feeds the imagination and makes possible figuring out the second draft.
- Or: In your head, ideas expand until they max out “working memory” – and it’s only be externalising them in the written word that you have capacity to iterate them.
- Or: Good writing necessarily takes multiple edits, and the act of writing and act of rewriting are sufficiently different that performing both simultaneously is like rubbing your tummy and patting your head.
Asynchronous Design Critique: Getting Feedback
An Article by Erin CasaliGetting feedback can be thought of as a form of design research. In the same way that we wouldn’t do any research without the right questions to get the insights that we need, the best way to ask for feedback is also to craft sharp questions.
Why Sketch?
What you have observed closely
Drawing requires that you pay attention to every detail—even the seemingly unimportant ones. In creating an image (no matter how skillfully), the lines and tones on the paper provide ongoing feedback as to what you have observed closely and what you have not.
A single image
Scientific illustrations can achieve certain things that photographs cannot. A good illustration can portray difficult-to-photograph or rarely witnessed events. It can incorporate everything that’s important into one single image or show a special view of a subject.
It would be next to impossible to observe, in nature, a dozen different aquatic species in their natural habitat, posing perfectly together and all in focus at one time—but such a scene can easily come to life in an illustration.
Parallel refinement
My studies of live animals usually begin with a series of quick drawings, all on a single page. When the subject changes position—which it pretty much always does—I abandon the first sketch and start a new one. Continuing on in this way, the page fills with mostly unfinished squiggles until the animal eventually resumes one of its earlier poses. If that happens, I add as much detail or refinement to one of the easier sketches as I can. While this is all going on, I also jot down written notes that help explain what I observed and what seemed significant.
Color reproduction
In-person, live observation of color is a practice for which I feel there is no adequate substitute. Photographs are often imprecise in reproducing color.
The negative spaces
Focus on the negative spaces surrounding the object to give yourself a fresh perspective on the form.
Hues subdued
Colors in nature are, in general, more subdued than what comes directly from the pencil or the tube of paint. Greens, especially, tend to be a lot browner than we expect.
Unfinished
Leave the drawing unfinished. Record as much information as you need, but don’t draw any forms, details, or colors that are merely repetitive. The back and front of a representative flower on a plant, for example, or half of a bilaterally symmetrical animal may be all that’s necessary.
A red sea fan
Ink and watercolor drawing of a red sea fan.
Sketches
Sketches and written notes.