human-centred designers

Being a perfectionist can be a good thing; engineers, for example. I want the engineer of that multi-storey building to be a perfectionist, or I probably won’t get in the lift. But for human-centred designers, being a perfectionist is unproductive. It means you focus on the wrong things, and worry about the minute details rather than the big picture.

Ambiguity is fundamental to design, and the enemy of perfect

The challenging stuff in design is all messy and imperfect. It’s not about the artefacts or the process, it’s about humans or structures or systems or more often, a combination of all those. They’re the things we need to spend time on and if you want everything to be perfect, you’re going to find that very uncomfortable.

We talk about it a lot, that sitting with ambiguity is what makes us good designers. There’s always a point in the messy middle of a project where the urge to “just do this” is almost overwhelming. And that’s whether you’re a perfectionist or not. The need to be able to do something tangible, to focus on a deliverable or course of action, is a stress response to helping you gain back control. But in those moments of stress, it’s the last thing you should be doing. It’s a distraction from the real issue at hand; a way to take away the ambiguity, not a way to get to the right conclusion.

Part of this is about having the confidence to not be right all the time. The more you focus on perfectionism, the less willing you are to be wrong, and if you’re worried about being wrong, you won’t push any boundaries.

Why do designers get stuck trying to make things perfect?

So often I see designers unable to move on because something isn’t quite right. They get stuck in the research, needing to do more interviews because we haven’t got the answer yet. Or redesign the map or the report because it’s not quite the right image or layout or font or whatever. Or spend hours crafting the perfect prototype when realistically, a hand drawn sketch would’ve been fine.

And that’s completely counterproductive, because most of the time the only way you figure out what’s not working and why is to move on, to push things forward and see what might happen next. Using “it’s not right yet” is an excuse, a crutch to stop you having to face into things you’re uncomfortable with.

There’s no simple answer to why we procrastinate like this. Maybe we’re:

• Unsure what to do next
• Feeling like we’re losing control
• Not clear on the purpose of the work
• Not confident in ourselves or our skills
• Looking for acceptance or recognition (and not getting it)

All these can result in a focus on what we’re comfortable doing rather than what we should be doing.

The thing is, being a perfectionist isn’t about the thing you’re designing, it’s about you. Your need for control, or, your desire to look good by producing something lovely.

How to know if it’s “good enough” or you’re just being lazy

It’s all about context, and balance. My brother used to say that 51% is 1% wasted effort. In a pass/fail situation that’s probably true, if cutting it a bit fine, but obviously the real world isn’t usually like that. But there’s almost always a balance between not rigorous enough and trying too hard.

Sometimes “good enough” is a product of your environment; you have limited time or resources, and you can only do what you can do. Recognise it, live with it.

Sometimes you learn the hard way, when your ‘good enough’ isn’t the same as your client or your boss. That’s not always a problem if that’s just about expectations management. But it’s absolutely a problem if it doesn’t get you the results that you need, or their reaction causes such a blow to your self esteem that you can’t keep going (been there, done that).

We’re all different and you’ll need to figure out for yourself what good enough looks like for you. I tend to ask myself “is this good enough to move on?” because very little that I do is an end in itself, it’s just a way to get to the next thing.

How to curb your perfectionist tendencies

Being conscious of your perfectionist habits is probably the most important step in doing something about them. And that means not just recognising your own behaviour, but being open with the people you work with and for. Get comfortable with talking about “good enough” and have people who’ll call you out when you’re tinkering past the point of usefulness. Make sure everyone knows this is a deliberate choice — not just you being lazy — and you’ll be surprised how much it helps frame your own thinking.

Small things can help. When we’re in a team session working on a whiteboard I’ll often start by writing SDK in the corner with a circle around it and big exclamation mark. That stands for Spelling Doesn’t Kount, and it’s a way of freeing people up to not worry about the little things.

Check you’re allocating the right amount of time to things. For example if you have one day to conduct research, you definitely want to spend most of that day actually researching and making sense of your research, and almost no time preparing materials. So don’t spend hours creating the perfect wireframe, spend two minutes creating one that’s good enough.

Remember…

Good enough is perfect. Because it’s all you need.