In season three of The Bear, Carmy is ruthlessly determined to turn his restaurant around and get Michelin Star status. To help achieve this, he puts together a list of non-negotiables. These are rules that can never be broken by him or his staff. The list is a bit insane (No repeat ingredients. Really?) and in Carmy’s pursuit of excellence he inevitably puts a strain on the relationships of all his loved ones and colleagues.
Carmy’s list of non-negotiables
Like Carmy, I’ve put together a list. A list of UX design principles. They’ve been written in sharpie on a bunch of sticky notes. Lovingly arranged in a 3 x 3 grid. I try to live by these as best I can (but not to the level of an Emmy award winning Jeremy Allen White).
So I give to you, my nine negotiable design principles (many of which are shamelessly stolen).
Nine design tenets written on sticky notes (like a UX designer does)
We often get caught up wanting to be the one lone genius amongst our colleagues. The one who has all the great ideas that just pop out of our heads. But with that quick solution based mindset come a ton of assumptions. Do we truly know the persona of the user? Do we know this is a typical issue they face? Are there outside factors causing this problem? The more you delve into the problem space, the more inevitable the solution feels. Don’t be the genius. Be the problem solver.
Thoughts often start unstructured and then build up their structure along the way. If you make a high fidelity design right away when there’s still a multitude of question about the user experience, you are doing a disservice to the design. Feel comfortable starting with sketches and building things up as clarity is reached.
When you put it all on black, you know you’re making a risky bet with a huge potential payoff. When you spread out your chips, you’re reducing risk and payoff. Realize that everything you put into a product is a bet. Some big, some small. To change these from simply bets to great bets, however, you need to go beyond just throwing your chips out there. If you truly know your users and the market, you’ll stack the odds in your favor.
Early on when ideas, visions, and solutions are forming is the time for debate. A healthy debate (with evidence to back it up) leads to good outcomes for customers. However, there are times when a decision is crystalized. Don’t be the negative voice in the group that will then inevitably tear apart a team.