Approaching Problems With A Designer’s Mindset (Notes)

I recently listened to a lecture online from a professor. These are the notes from the lecture mixed with some of my own notes and thoughts.

Embrace Curiosity

Start with the designers mindset of curiosity, curiosity is the mindset that gives you the energy to overcome fear and procrastination. Curiosity is one of the intrinsic human motivations. You don’t need a reason to be curious. If you could tell other people about what you’re curious about then you’ll be working on another designer’s mindset which is called storytelling. When you tell your story, you invite collaboration with the world. Humans are attracted to storytelling and authentic. They conducted studies that brands that are authentic in the storytelling and brand message, saw large increases in sales and adoption. In order to tell a great story, you have to be curious first. Often, I would say if not close to always, people underestimate how powerful a book is. Years ago before the printing press, a family might be lucky enough to have 6 books in their home. Books give us access to an authors condensed research and thoughts. It allows us to peer in their minds for a moment, piggybacking on the all the work they have done to derive their conclusions on a subject. You may not be as smart as the author, but you can match their curiosity.

Prototyping

Prototyping is a design tool that allows us to ask questions, dismiss assumptions and try stuff even in small experiments. If you try small experiments, you will discover something amazing. You will find different ways that work and ways that do not work. Small experiments reduce the cost of initiative rather than a large investment of time, money, and resources into an assumption. There are really two kinds of life design prototypes. One is prototype conversation — go talk to somebody about something and you’re interested in. You will learn a lot. The second is prototype experience- where you have the felt experience of trying something that could be spending time with someone, asking questions, and seeing things from someone else’s shoes. Keep your resolutions small and achievable and prototype everything.

Reframing

It seems impossible to fix the problems that appear unsolvable, but you know if you step back, and you reframe, change the frame of reference on the problem you can often unlock all sorts of new solutions. Reframing is the powerful tool in design thinking to take a look at the problem from a different point of view and when we release some of the constraints from the original problem, then solutions will appear.