If you work in digital, you should know that no two projects are ever the same, and there is very little you can do to be fully prepared to work on your next digital project. Not even working on other big complicated digital projects helps a great deal, unless you are re-skinning the exact same thing over and over again. And let’s hope you are not doing that.
Whether your role has you establishing timelines or budgets, planning the wireframes, designing the layout or programming a project’s deliverables, the best you can do to somewhat prepare is:
- Have strong processes in place that you and your team actually follow
- Use very detailed documentation at every stage of large or small projects
and - Read everything you can – stay on top of trends and technology opportunities.
But more than that, digital team members need to be nimble and great under pressure to stay on top of constantly changing technology and other internal and external pressures during all stages of a project. We could even learn a bit from looking to people outside of our industry. To help illustrate, I’ve picked out a few personal heroes shown below, placed in roles for which they would be perfect if on a digital dream team.
1. Bill Murray: Digital Account Manager
Yes, and… that is a great idea. I’ll regroup with my team and figure out cost and timeline changes to make something like that happen.
Bill Murray would make a killer digital account manager. He listens very well. He stays cool under pressure and can think fast on his feet. He’s instantly likable and a great storyteller. Plus, he is intelligent and self-deprecating, which never hurts.
He got his start at Second City doing improv comedy and a radio show with a few other bright young stars (Akroyd, Radner, Belushi, etc.) that formed the original Saturday Night Live cast in 1975. One of the guiding tenets of improv is the phrase “Yes, and…” which establishes that no matter what scenario or idea is given to you, instead of disagreeing with it, you accept the idea, add to it, and bounce it back to the rest of the team. This maintains momentum and keeps an openness to new ideas, breaking through to the next development.
“You’ve got to get out there and improvise and you’ve gotta be completely unafraid to die.” – Bill Murray
While it is true that a good account person knows how to say “No,” a better account person can say “Yes, and…” Mr. Murray could take what might sound like a terrible idea from a client, talk through it and the consequences (more money, longer timeline, whatever) and let the client decide to come to their own conclusions. Perhaps this gets the client to say “you know, maybe that is not the right thing to do right now,” or maybe this drives the team to a better overall idea.
Added bonus: he could take clients out to golf wearing Pabst Blue Ribbon golf pants.
2. MacGyver: Programmer
Any programmer worth his or her salt should grow a mullet and pick up some aviators.
MacGyver, a fictional character in the show of the same name, is often remembered as “that guy who can make a bomb out of a paperclip and some duct tape”, but he was far more than this. He was educated as a scientist, carrying with him an encyclopedic knowledge of physical science. He then served as a bomb technician during wartime, before joining the secret agency for which he works during the episodes of the show.
At the beginning of each episode, MacGyver is usually already deep in some situation before opening credits roll, and things have already gone south. He’s armed only with his intellect and whatever he can find around him to come out alive against all odds.
Well, when it comes down to me against a situation, I don’t like the situation to win. – Angus MacGyver
Like a good programmer, he uses his education as a foundation, applies some strong problem-solving skills to his current and upcoming problems, understands the limitations of what he is working with, and builds a game plan going into a situation for the most part. Sometimes he has brought with him the tools that he thinks he needs and extras just in case. But sometimes, that plan just doesn’t work out and those tools are not enough. MacGyver is almost always fighting against the clock and needs has to have a clear head to determine how to save the day. Maybe exactly what he needs is a paperclip that he can use to stop a bomb, or perhaps an include that was missing in the code.
I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate on this one. While having MacGyver as a programmer on your team is excellent, it can also be a huge pain if you don’t have some other more organized folks on the team to balance that out. A large web application, for instance, still definitely needs an organized team who have something very well planned out so that duct tape isn’t necessary, and ticking time bombs and sticky situations beyond the normal QA are minimal.
And last, but certainly not least…
3. Bruce Lee: User Experience Designer
I don’t fear the man who has built 10,000 different web forms. I fear the man who has rebuilt 1 web form 10,000 times.
Bruce Lee was one of the most genuine, thoughtful and focused martial artists and movie stars of his generation and, some might argue, of all time. During his life, he studied many martial arts and fighting styles. He also learned to take a few elements that were most effective for him, practice those obsessively, and discard movements that seemed to waste time or energy.
From this, Bruce Lee created Jeet Kune Do – the “style without style” or guiding philosophy which he created out of his desire to teach others to be more agile (like water) and efficient by not allowing unnecessary structure and wasted movement that many styles incorporated to get in the way of direct, simple, effective movements.
At its most simple form, Jeet Kune Do follows these basic principles:
- Directness
- Simplicity
- Non-classical form or “the form of no form”
“It is not the daily increase, but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” Bruce Lee
So how would that make Bruce Lee a great talent for user experience? In the same way that one would want to choose a punch when one’s fist is closest to the target (face) and a kick when one’s foot is closest to the target (kneecap), a great user experience person would always seek out ways to minimize steps and movement in any element of a user experience or interaction.
If you have a web form that collects a ZIP code from a user, do you not, from this, already have their city and state? Better yet – do you truly need a location or address at this stage in the user relationship? If not, how can you get them into your experience or product with less movement?
There are countless other examples, but I wanted to keep this post short and sweet, and I’ve already failed at this. So I’ll leave you with some links to other people in digital and user experience who find inspiration from Bruce Lee in their practice. Feel free to browse this narrative about why you should Treat Your UX Like Water or this piece about Bruce Lee’s principles as applied to UX.
If you want to learn more about Switch Digital projects or if you want advice on surviving a Ragnar, Spartan Race or Tough Mudder, contact Brad at bradl@theswitch.us
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