Sell Your Cleverness and Buy Bewilderment

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”?—?Rumi

If you don’t know about Human-Centered Design and you’re designing products, services, or environments, then rest unassured, because you are missing your user. Designers and architects have been using a process kindred to HCD for years and only in modern days has this methodology been thrust in to the realm of public awareness.

Christopher Alexander, a well known architect of his day used a method of pattern study in-situ (in situation) to develop forward-thinking schematics and combinations of living structures never before thought of. After studying lower income communities it became quite obvious to him that mixing a playground directly adjacent to a laundry facility offered not only safety for the children playing as the adults would launder, but an increase in communal activity. Associative design based on the users primary patterns.

When design forces people to behave in a manner incongruent to their normal patterns, it ceases to serve the very purpose of its existence.

The magic of human-centered design is that it invokes a conversation steeped in humility and authenticity. To understand your user you must engage them with the understanding that they are the experts: Exploring their priorities, values, and culture. Through this knowledge, only then can the pieces be reassembled into a framework that functions for the whole of the problem statement.

The paradoxical realization I had when approaching problem solving with the human-centered design methodology was what I like to call, Innocent Wisdom?—?genuine innocence with the benefit of hindsight.

As a designer, we often try to formulate solutions from the very onset of data collection and inquiry. We are a profession of problem-solving cosmonauts knowingly hurling ourselves on a lark to the stars and back, then collapse like a white dwarf into solution-singularity compounded with multitudinous repetition. Laughable as this seems, the ‘fail often and fail fast” approach is candy to us and works magic with timelines.

None of this can be done, however, with any sort of fortitude without innocence. Its power during exploration is the all encompassing essence being rooted in amazement of the unknown, and moreover, the known.

If there is one thing I can’t stress enough to the success of any type of solution-driven discovery, it is the focus on user and having an insatiable appetite for open-minded innocent wisdom.

So, the next time your mind wants to jump to preemptive assumptions, remember to honor the stories, priorities, values, and culture of the person, or people in front of you. Listen with humility while collecting the fodder for the truly great solution.