“To be or not to be” or how to avoid a framework when making design decisions

Being engaged in something professionally, we constantly make decisions. Big and small, important and not very. The success of all our activities depends on how correctly we take them.

When it comes to software development or startup development, both the commercial success of the project and the well-being, efficiency and morale of the team depend on the decisions of key employees. Errors here are not immediately detected and costly.


I recently read the excellent book “The Traps of Thinking” by Chip and Dan Khizov. It is not about IT at all. Quite the contrary. It is about how to think every day. There is not a word about design or programming. But it was in her that I found many tips on how to improve the decision-making process in an IT company. These tips, seasoned with my own observations, I am going to share with you.
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Invisible problem

The usual question when making decisions in the product development team is this: to add or not the feature, to accept or not another programmer, to support VKontakte or only Facebook, to make or not to make an adaptive layout ... Such issues are resolved either by one person or by voting. As a response, we get “Yes” or “No”. Usually neither the one nor the other answer is 100% satisfied with the command. And what is guided in the decision process is not completely clear. Decision making is often accompanied by long suffering, meditations and weighings. As a result, it is accepted, and then the team lives with him.

For the sake of experiment, let's try to look at the same questions from a different angle - more generally:

Add or not feature?	What tasks are now the highest priority? What tasks will bring more money / clients / feedback ... in a short time / in the future?
To accept or not another programmer?	How can you best use the free budget N thousand rubles? Can we allocate another M thousand rubles to solve any other priority tasks?
Support VKontakte or Facebook only?	Who is our target audience where it behaves most actively: social networks, forums, webinars? What means can you attract / hold / build a dialogue with her ... the cheapest? What marketing tools will give us the effect right now, and which ones can work for the future?
To do or not to do adaptive layout?	What% of users from mobile devices come to the site? Do we lose them? What percentage of users are we ready to lose, and which is no longer?

It turns out that if you slightly shift the focus of attention, and look at the question more broadly, it becomes much clearer how to solve it. There are more solution options and choosing one of them is much more reasonable.

A typical problem that arises when making decisions is called “narrow frames” and does not allow to see the whole range of possible options. The insidiousness of the narrow framework lies in the fact that in most cases we do not realize that we have fallen into them. Let us examine the examples of the manifestation of a narrow framework in the development of a product.

Frames in the design

Many times I found myself fixing my time on one option. I don’t like him, but I don’t see how to fix it. I sit and move the line per pixel to the left - per pixel to the right or slightly changing the hue of some color. Usually - this is a signal that I stalled. We need to relax, move away from the monitor, ask someone for advice, look at some inspiring example (for me, oddly enough, apple.com :) or read the task again - but do I understand it correctly?

One of the problems, by the way, is connected with the formulation of the problem. Frames are often created when it is set. Instead of formulating the problem, and looking for ways to solve it, people begin to immediately discuss making the first solution that came to mind and thus limit their options.

For example, you need to make a travel agency website. The customer says, “I like the site over that competitor. I want the same. They have a beautiful twirl on the main one and the orange buttons are just super. ” And that's it! The designer can only think about how to make a twist and orange buttons, but so that it does not have much like a competitor's site. Those. He is not thinking about how to make it more convenient for visitors and what else people might find useful when choosing trips. He struggles to solve a completely different problem.

Framework in programming

After scientists, programmers are the most reasonable and often people who use their own brains. But even they sometimes fall into the frame. They run into the solution of a single task, do not see obvious solutions, plant mistakes. According to my observations, this happens when they are either tired, or someone jerks them all the time and does not allow them to concentrate, or they are under pressure, or all at the same time. It happens, of course, that the programmer is not sufficiently literate, makes decisions based on his narrow momentary problem and does not take into account the general task. But we will not talk about these :)

Framework in marketing

I have met many times with the fact that marketers act strictly according to the textbook (of course, not all, but many). Blog, SEO, subscription form, heating letters. Plus, social networks where blog updates are posted interspersed with posts from popular public posts. Plus, of course, contextual advertising. And so for absolutely any project. It does not matter that it is a concrete plant, a medical center or a high-tech startup. What is the reason for such a narrow framework, I do not know. It would seem that the work is creative, it should consist of constant experiments. Perhaps the fear is not intervening to discourage the advertising budget.

How to see the frame?

Oddly enough, being within the framework, a person very rarely realizes this. However, he is not able to find an obvious answer, because he simply does not look in his direction. Who has not had the occasion that at the sight of an elegant solution we exclaim:

“God, that's obvious! How did I not guess before? ”

You do not need to be a genius to find beautiful and correct solutions. This can all. And for this there are methods.

Step 1. Detect the problem. If you see that the choice boils down to just two options (doing this or that), or, even worse, one option (to be or not to be), then you have fallen into the box. Realized that in the framework - great! The first step to victory is made.

Step 2. Consciously seek other solutions. The trick is precisely to seek solutions clearly and deliberately, and not to choose from the first that came to mind. Some tricks:

1. The disappearance of options. Imagine that we cannot accept any of the available options. Here we can not, and that's it. We remember the folk wisdom “Goal on inventions is cunning”, make your brain turn on and invent something new.
2. Not OR, but I. Instead of choosing between the two available options, we will try to combine them. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Leaving the advantages of both options, we will try to change the situation so as to level the disadvantages.
3. Like the others. Surely, other people have already encountered a similar problem. For example, your competitors. So let's use it for our own good. There must be some benefit from competitors :)

One rule of thumb is to keep looking for options until you fall in love at least twice. (Chip Heath and Dan Heath)

Step 3. Choose the desired solution. So, found some good options - you need to choose one. At this stage, we are waited by another insidious enemy - our emotions. For example, the mind tells us that it’s time to close the project, and the heart screams that it can still pay off, and it’s a pity to leave it, because we have invested so much in it. Here you need to make an effort and distance themselves from the question. Try to look at it from the side. Ask yourself if my friend had been in this situation, what would I advise him? And if I asked Steve Jobs for advice, what would he say to me? Very often, when such a question is asked, a completely unambiguous answer immediately arises.

Step 4. Check. No one can foresee how events will develop and what your decision will lead to. Even if we are confident in the result, we have vast experience, we are experts, we have an intuition and a PhD in the area under discussion. The thesis that the solution will work is just a guess. Just admit it.

The tendency to consider yourself a great specialist (“I just know it intuitively”) sits inside each of us (Chip Heath and Dan Heath)

The good news is that in most cases the assumption can be tested in conditions close to reality. We decided that we need to introduce a new function - make a stub button and check how often they will click on it. You think that the reception of another programmer will speed up development by 20% - measure within a few days how much time the programmers spend on coding and how much on interaction within the team. Consider that the more participants, the more interaction between them, and the dependence is far from linear.

In some cases, a calculation is enough to test an assumption; in others, modeling is needed; in the third, an experiment or a prototype close to reality. But in any case, checking in the field will help soberly look at the decision. And what is important, regarding the test as a study, we will be mentally prepared for a possible error and a course change following it.

What we have

The need to make decisions is an important part of our work, and the ability to do it well is an important part of success. Learning to make the right decisions is not at all difficult. Anyone can do this, and even a high school diploma is not needed for this. The trick is to more often turn on the brain and analyze your own behavior. And recognizing the problem of a narrow framework, turn decision making into a conscious rational process.

Making the right decisions!