We do most things without consideration. 80% of our days is a result of our habits rather than conscious deliberation*. This is obvious in things that are obviously habits like our morning coffee or an afternoon walk or a post dinner dessert. But I've seen this auto-pilot mode occurring also within product development.
I came to a realization while commenting on one of williamliao's posts that jasonleow, Arcticloon, and myself were holding ourselves back by being so tied to mimicking the form of 200WAD. At the same time I was commenting on the post I had been browsing Adagia, Writestreak, and Lifelog what I noticed was how although the projects had remarkably different intentions their forms were were were unremarkable from each other.
I believe this happened because all three of us approached product dev in the first stage mimetically. Our primary northstar was how similar is this to 200WAD? Now when I was within the building phase I never actually thought like that. I mean I had phases where I would consider the question about one little feature here and there, but I never thought that it was my northstar.
It was only after taking a two week building pause that I could more honestly audit where my attention was going to that I could retrospectively see that mimicking a previous form had been my focus. So what is my intended focus here on out? Researching the context and letting that context shape the form instead of copying another form.
As makers I think we underestimate the power of habits within our work processes. As in we don't think that we can run on autopilot within our projects. And I believe this is one of the most dangerous beliefs when it comes to making useful things. Admitting the power of habits at this scope of thinking/working is I believe a requirement into taking luck out of the product market-fit equation.
* from one of the best books about habits The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The orthodoxy is easy and uncontroversial and, to your point about habits, already ingrained in us.
In addition to letting context drive development, what are some other mechanisms that come to mind that help us draw a clear line between what makes vs. what's simply habitual?
This has been on my mind and I think about creators like Walt Disney and unparallelled futurists/longterm thinkers like Musk and Bezos. Intelligence surely a part of it, but I suspect that they're also really good at asking better, convention-shaking questions that enable them to think about a reality that doesn't exist yet (artists).
The two questions that I'm gravitating towards as imperative to ask are: "why?" x5 and "why not?"
I'd like to think we were emulating what we felt had worked, and dropped those that didn't.
On a higher level, I don't think there's anything wrong with imitation per se, especially for the basics, where we don't have to reinvent the wheel. People solved the problem of reading posts feed, writing editor, and comment threads for some time, so it's not surprising we all look similar on that. I mean, that's what 200wad was probably mimicking too.
But where mimicking doesn't work is when it's done wholesale and mindlessly, without understanding the new context and new human needs to address. I guess that's where you're coming from in this article and where we agree. Your Tribes idea is a great and creative departure, I feel!
williamliao I think it lies somewhere within intentionality. There may be ten designers in the same room who come up with essentially the same mvp workflow for an app let's say. And if you only go by their mockups and don't investigate further then you would think they might all equally be skilled.
But if you were to dive further into their intentions and assess their judgment then you would see that some of the designers had intention (really observing context and allowing it to shape the form) whereas most others would be mimicking existing forms because they are trying to impress or some other reason that's not context driven. This is actually why when I get the chance to work with designers I'm not interested in their mockups until we get on some more deeper level of syncd understanding.
jasonleow In this post I'm referring to intentionality rather than output. So it's true that internet forums/comments are mostly solved so the output should be more or less the same. But when I audited the category of my focus while building I observed that I mostly did things on autopilot.
Now one might argue "well if the output is the same does the intention/input matter?" and in the local scope of one project phase it doesn't matter, but it does matter after that. I think this can be greatly illustrated with an example.
Let's take a video game for example. There's a difference between having the game's software on your computer actually render the entire world on your screen vs you simply watching a Youtube video of that same world.
To someone viewing it on first glance it might appear not so different. But they are because in the video scenario it's not interactive... it's a preordained shot that can only go forward and backward. With the computer with the game the player can input all sorts of other controls like move forward, backward, left, right and shoot and do whatever they want that the game allows at will.
So when it comes to product dev, I find it keystone that we make sure that we don't autopilot decision making.. I think that's where True Design lies. Not in the pixels but the judgment. Like Will said above. "Asking Why"
abrahamKim i'm with you on mindful development, being more intentional and self-aware of our decisions when pushing code. (Also great segway to talk about the ethics of software lol)
ah but here it is even before the pushing of code! It is in the conception. The intentions and thoughts we simmer on our walks and even at the dinner table when our loved ones are speaking to us and we should be paying 100 percent attention them but we are enthralled with this thing. lol it's everywhere
williamliao
jasonleow
Arcticloon
In addition to letting context drive development, what are some other mechanisms that come to mind that help us draw a clear line between what makes vs. what's simply habitual?
This has been on my mind and I think about creators like Walt Disney and unparallelled futurists/longterm thinkers like Musk and Bezos. Intelligence surely a part of it, but I suspect that they're also really good at asking better, convention-shaking questions that enable them to think about a reality that doesn't exist yet (artists).
The two questions that I'm gravitating towards as imperative to ask are: "why?" x5 and "why not?"
On a higher level, I don't think there's anything wrong with imitation per se, especially for the basics, where we don't have to reinvent the wheel. People solved the problem of reading posts feed, writing editor, and comment threads for some time, so it's not surprising we all look similar on that. I mean, that's what 200wad was probably mimicking too.
But where mimicking doesn't work is when it's done wholesale and mindlessly, without understanding the new context and new human needs to address. I guess that's where you're coming from in this article and where we agree. Your Tribes idea is a great and creative departure, I feel!
But if you were to dive further into their intentions and assess their judgment then you would see that some of the designers had intention (really observing context and allowing it to shape the form) whereas most others would be mimicking existing forms because they are trying to impress or some other reason that's not context driven. This is actually why when I get the chance to work with designers I'm not interested in their mockups until we get on some more deeper level of syncd understanding.
Now one might argue "well if the output is the same does the intention/input matter?" and in the local scope of one project phase it doesn't matter, but it does matter after that. I think this can be greatly illustrated with an example.
Let's take a video game for example. There's a difference between having the game's software on your computer actually render the entire world on your screen vs you simply watching a Youtube video of that same world.
To someone viewing it on first glance it might appear not so different. But they are because in the video scenario it's not interactive... it's a preordained shot that can only go forward and backward. With the computer with the game the player can input all sorts of other controls like move forward, backward, left, right and shoot and do whatever they want that the game allows at will.
So when it comes to product dev, I find it keystone that we make sure that we don't autopilot decision making.. I think that's where True Design lies. Not in the pixels but the judgment. Like Will said above. "Asking Why"