One size fits most…
There are more websites now than ever before, and there’s no sign of that growth slowing down. The best thing for companies to do is to adopt platforms that allow iterations and explorations at a more rapid pace that adopting Agile methodologies has afforded us. Generic patterns and design systems abound — Google Materials, IBM Carbon, Salesforce’s Lightning are all are masterfully crafted solutions that allow both design and development to ideate, prototype and iterate quickly.
Of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with the availability os these systems and I use and advocate their usage myself. These systems perform a job which they doubtlessly excel at, they’ve been user tested to oblivion. Their analytics are studied daily for any hiccups that can be altered and improved by countless teams that have used them on their sites.
So where do we go from here?
How can we innovate if the numbers are telling our business partners there is no need. The product landscape is then at risk at becominggeneric and extremely boring in it’s perfection. Creativity will invariably suffer as we look towards design innovation through spreadsheet colored glasses.
Tough Guys and Pretty Boys
I can’t help but think back to Harley Earl. Earl struggled to legitimize the importance of design against the tradition- and production-oriented executives who even called his department the “Beauty Parlor”. All this changed when Alfred Sloan decided to use aesthetics as a differentiator to compete against the operational efficiency of the Model T of Ford. By 1937, Earl’s design department was the primary reason GM rapidly gained new market share and totally displaced Ford Co. and become the №1 auto maker in the world…
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Both Harley Earl and Steve Jobs had the vision (pardon the pun) to invest in creativity as a source of competitive advantage.
Investing in the creative “spark”
At the end of the day, you can’t make decisions based solely on dollars (following the leader)or because of what people are saying (user research); you have to make decisions based on your gut and that takes courage.
Oftentimes designers are asked to make only evolutionary improvements, look a little better, slightly more functional or more akin to a competitor. Revolutionary ideas are riskier, and take longer to do, but when they are successful, they can create a complete paradigm shift.
Intuition and Accident
Scientists have determined that people in a relaxed state and a good mood are far more likely to develop innovative or creative thoughts but how do we relax and maintain a good mood when everything we design is being measured for outcome, compared against industry best practices, and thrown over the fence in 2 week cycles?
If we honestly see the value in creativity and innovation to combat market disruptors we need to stop trying to harness our brains, and instead help our brains get out of their harness. The brain is just an endless knot of connections. And a creative thought is simply … a network that’s connecting itself in a new way. It can’t be forced or reduced to process it just needs room to breath.