Love Your Process, Not Your Product
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slide-by-slide presenter narrative: http://goo.gl/3pZYx9 Presented at the Puget Sound World Usability Day Conference 2014 We are all in danger with falling in love with our products. They are beautiful things. We have been intimately involved with many of them since birth and are in a unique position to understand how their nuanced traits have evolved into a personality that has such unbounded potential for success. While this sounds wonderful, -- trust me, as a manager of development teams, I see this happen often— it usually ends badly. You see, when in love, objectivity is impossible; you tend to shape the product to your ideal; and you have trouble letting go. You forget that the product isn’t meant for you to love. It belongs to it’s users. What belongs to you is your process. Process is what you love and wed when you decided to be a Designer. It will stay with you through thick and thin, and can be a fruitful union through understanding and working towards your personal ideals. slide-by-slide presenter narrative: http://goo.gl/3pZYx9
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- 1. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Love Your Process, Not Your Product depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 2. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT What is Love? depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 3. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT London IS A DESERT without your dainty feet… write me a line TAKE ALL MY LOVE and Oscar Wilde Letter to Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas now and forever. depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 4. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT said all that really matters in You your first letter from out there … that you love me a lot. Kurt Vonnegut Letter to his daughter Nannette, 1972 depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 5. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Yeah— I know Todd is a prick, but you gotta love him. depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 6. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT I love, love, LOVE that film! You’ve gotta go see it. depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 7. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT What is Love? Love Satisfies our Biological, Psychological, Existential & needs. depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 8. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things AS THEY ARE Erich Fromm The Art of Loving depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 9. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT How Love Works depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 10. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Three Core Drives • Lust (Craving) • Attraction • Attachment Helen Fisher, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 11. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Love is Illusion depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 12. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT LOVE is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl… she looks like a haddock. John Barrymore and discovering that depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 13. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Falling for Haddock Designer-Product relationship : • Intense and exclusive focus • Intimate knowledge • Investment in it’s success depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 14. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Designer-Product Love: 5 Effects 1. The effect of Exclusive focus. • False-impression of product as objectively exceptional. • Your version of product takes preference to all other potentialities depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 15. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Designer-Product Love: 5 Effects 2. Belief in your singular product insight. • Dismissive of feedback because you know that the product handles the problem. depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 16. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Designer-Product Love: 5 Effects 3. The Invitation of Bias • Attribution Bias • Confirmation Bias • Personal Bias depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 17. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Designer-Product Love: 5 Effects 4. The subjective exaggerations of Love • of the objective importance of your contributions • of personal values and ideals reflected in your product • of your product’s positive qualities • of satisfaction with the product depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 18. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Designer-Product Love: 5 Effects 5. The avoidance of conflict. The more one judges, the less one loves Honoré de Balzac Physiologie Du Mariage depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 19. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of [objective] reality. Charles Bukowski Protect yourself with: • Humility • Clarity Of Thought • Sensitivity • Knowledge depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 20. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Love Your Process! This is a lasting romantic relationship: • Align it to your values, ideals, and self-perception. • Develop deep attachment. • Give Love and it is reciprocated. • Work to keep the spark alive. depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 21. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the SAME DIRECTION Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Airman’s Odyssey depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
- 22. Jason Civjan | UX Team Manager | Academic & Collaborative Applications, UW-IT Thank You The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis Art of Loving, Erich Fromm Irrational Man, William Barrett A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis; Fari Amini; Richard Lannon The Psychology of Love, ed. Robert J. Sternberg and Michael L Barnes. The writings and presentations of Helen Fisher: Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (2004) http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_in_love?language=en Through the Eyes of Love: Reality and Illusion in Intimate Relationships, Garth J. O. Fletcher and Alice D. Boyes (2010) http://www.sydneysymposium.unsw.edu.au/2007/Chapters/FletcherSSSP07.pdf brainpickings.org for continued inspiration depts.washington.edu/ux/ | @jcivjan | jcivjan@uw.edu
Editor's Notes
- Hi. Engagement is the theme of the day so… let’s talk about love.
- Love is many things. It is:
- The romantic love of individuals.
- The tender love of a parent
- The loyal love of a friend
- The emphatic love of a thing
- Love takes a variety of forms to satisfy very real, innate and varied biological, psychological, and existential needs that reside in us all. Love is the pulling of an ‘other’ from the external void and into the warm intimacy of our subjective reality. Be this ‘other’ a lover, a child, a friend, a thing, or even a product. Yes. Products are loved. There is nothing wrong with this. People should Love the things that they interact with everyday. Designers know this and we Design with the idea that our target users will love our products. We Design for both the objective, measurable aspects of the Product-User relationship, but also the more subjective aspects of delight, engagement, and aesthetic beauty. We do this by remaining objective. We say that we aren’t are users (even when we might be) in order to distance ourselves from that which we are trying to understand and measure.
- If we fail to be objective, we are giving up the ability to clearly see, measure, or understand without personal bias. We are giving up perspective. We are no longer Designing and are failing our product team. While a user is totally justified in loving a product. It is wrong for a Designer to fall in love with their own product. … but it happens quite often. It has happened to me and I’m going to venture that it has happened to you too. How does this happen?
- Helen Fisher, in her book Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, identifies three core drives that combine in various ways to define specific Loves:
- Lust or Craving: Which is used to filter all of our options to a group of ‘others’ we desire in some way. Attraction: Helps us to focus our energies on a single ‘other’. Deep Attachment: The development of attachments and dependencies. Makes the real ‘other’ tolerable for long-term commitment. Let’s focus on Attraction, as it is what defines our visions of Romantic Love and is what really screws us up. Again, it is this attraction that is the pulling of an ‘other’ into our orbit; into our subjective reality. To bring another so close to us --without getting hung up on the imperfect, fallible, stinky parts-- and to keep them close takes a good deal of self-deception and even a rewiring of our brain, providing long-term positive/romantic correlations with this ‘other’. This rewiring is called Limbic Revision (the Limbic structures of the brain are where emotion and memory collide) and is thought to result in the lasting tenderness that lingers after Attraction fades into the background. Attraction provides a longer lasting thrill than Lust might grant, enabling you to focus on ONE above all others, allowing you to --for a time-- ignore their blemishes and ordinary-ness, while exaggerating their good qualities. All to just buy you some time to develop a deep attachment with this chosen ‘other’. In this way,
- Love is illusion As the actor and cocktail wit, John Barrymore, put it:
- “Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl … [click] and discovering that she looks like haddock.” While obviously Barrymore is focused on the more superficial aspects of romantic love, it speaks to a core truth of all love. We are simply wired to lose all objectivity when we fall in love. As UX Designers, we are trying to Design for the subjective experience of our users, the layer of illusion that the user creates around our product. However, to do this, we need to see the objective reality that our product is a haddock. And focus on designing a haddock that will: Satisfy the cravings of the target audience Attract them to commit to the product and Entice them to stay around long enough to develop Deep Attachments.
- Unfortunately, when staring at a haddock with: intense and exclusive focus intimate knowledge why it exists the rationale for every curve of it’s body investment in it’s success a belief in it’s potential for success a vision of the form it must take for success This all makes us extremely susceptible to glimpsing the beauty. And when this happens, the game is over, resulting in stealthy elimination of objectivity. The effects of this Designer-Product Love are the same as in all love, but unfortunately, they provide none of the benefits… they just make it impossible to Design. 5 major effects of Designer-Product Love are:
- 1. The effect of Exclusive focus. This creates the false-impression that the product is objectively exceptional. And makes the product, as you see it, take preference to all other potentialities.
- 2. The Belief that you have singular insight into the product. The product seems absolutely intuitive to you. You are baffled when others don’t ‘get it’. Since the decisions you make give shape to the product, of course they will just make so much sense.
- 3. The Invitation of Bias, including: Attribution Bias Confirmation Bias Personal Bias
- 4. The subjective exaggerations of Love Exaggeration of the objective importance of your contributions, as reflected in the product Exaggeration of personal values and ideals reflected in your product Exaggeration of your product’s positive qualities Exaggeration of satisfaction with the product
- And, 5. The avoidance of conflict at any cost. This ensures that you will only seek/hear superficial feedback that doesn’t threaten your fundamental beliefs or desires for the product. As Balzac stated, “The more one judges, the less one loves” In this state, you simply cannot fulfill the objective role of Designer. You forget that your love for the product doesn’t matter. The product belongs to it’s users.
- How to break Love’s spell. “Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of [objective] reality.” Charles Bukowski As Designers, [click] we can avoid Love’s spell with Humility, Clarity of Thought, Sensitivity, and Knowledge: [click] Humility Know that understanding is your job; Listening is your greatest tool. Remember that the least important voice in the room is yours. Realize that your product will never be perfect and is just one of many potentialities of success. [click] Clarity of thought Understand when your decisions are fundamentally subjective decisions to make. Otherwise, assume that they must be made as objectively as possible. Decisions should be traceable through user-focused rationale, not end in your gut feelings or opinions. Understand biases and how to best negate them. Talk openly about them when designing research or making decisions. Surround yourself with clarity: get your colleagues comfortable talking in terms of user-based rationale distinguishing subjectivity from objectivity [click] Sensitivity Sensitivity to when you are treating the product as a reflection of yourself, as evidenced in hope, hubris, and defensiveness. Be sensitive to colleagues questioning your objectivity. As in the bedroom, create “safe words” for when a Designer might be falling in love with their product. These can be anything, but should be non-threatening. “Jason, I think you’re ‘flippin pancakes’ on this one.” is a fine example. [click] Knowledge Know how people work Read philosophy. Investigate psychology. Understand biology. !This is not to say that a Designer’s existence must be a lonely one! Far from it!
- Love your process! Your process is a long-term romantic relationship: You fall in love with it, causing you to want to be a Designer. And, thus, aligning it with your values, ideals, and self-perception. You develop deep attachment to your process over time. Love is given/reciprocated: You grow because of it (every time you go through it) and it should grow/evolve as you become more self-aware. Just like any love, the romance will fade over time, and you must work hard to keep the romantic spark alive by reflecting on your changing values, ideals, context, and self-perception sharing new insights with your process surrendering to the constraints, responsibilities, and ideals represented by your process Unlike your product, which you must stare directly into the essence of, your process is your intimate romantic companion throughout life.
- It is the type of love that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry describes in Airman’s Odyssey as: “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction”
- THANK YOU for listening. I’ve put together a reading list, in case you want to explore this topic further. Also, feel free to contact me via email or Twitter. I’ll post my presentation notes on our blog UX@UW.