{"id":1131,"date":"2019-09-16T21:38:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T04:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=1131"},"modified":"2019-09-22T11:33:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-22T18:33:12","slug":"sketch-to-understand-explore-not-just-solve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=1131","title":{"rendered":"Sketch to explore, not solve"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sketching is quite simply the<\/strong> essential skill for any designer at any level. This is a definitive point of fact. And yet, lately I’ve noticed an odd reluctance to sketch out ideas, particularly among candidates we have been interviewing to join our UX team, for which I serve as UX Architect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder if this reluctance is due to an unfortunate prevailing presumption that “sketching = solving”, as if putting pen to whiteboard means one has the right answer. Far from it! Sketching is more often about probing & exploring a problem space visually. This includes a re-articulation of the problem statement, usually as a re-confirmation of what was heard or interpreted from the Product Manager or Engineer. This goes right at the fundamental irony\/contradiction\/tension of designing: in order to understand the problem, you need to create something suggestive of potential solutions — which are knowingly “wrong” — yet they help suss out latent constraints, unrealized patterns, hidden relationships, and even surprising opportunities. To break out of the prison of “analysis paralysis” — and I’ve seen candidates do this, writing gobs of words all over the whiteboard, spinning in circles — you gotta start sketching something, which will activate other parts of your mind & senses. You might discover something new that re-frames your understanding of the problem! Therein lies the profound power & benefit of sketching to explore, not just solve a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, taking it a step further, there’s the collaborative (or more precisely, co<\/em>–constructive<\/em>) nature of sketching on a whiteboard in real-time with cross-functional colleagues. The sketching activity encourages a dynamic of quickly thinking, judging, assessing, filtering collectively<\/em>, sparking additive notions or supplemental considerations from multiple perspectives. That’s a very good thing! Hopefully others will jump up, and in that moment will take a pen to sketch out something that builds upon what you just drew. Or offer something that’s a contrasting idea. The meeting then becomes less of a “what’s the answer” face-off, and more of a group journey of achieving shared understanding, with assorted epiphanies visually sparked along the way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sketching is quite simply the essential skill for any designer at any level. This is a definitive point of fact. And yet, lately I’ve noticed an odd reluctance to sketch out ideas, particularly among candidates we have been interviewing to join our UX team, for which I serve as UX Architect. I wonder if this … Continue reading “Sketch to explore, not solve”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1140,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions\/1140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}