Weekly musings, Wk 3: 1-5 Feb
Conducting challenging research, UX meet ups , David Hieatt, walking meetings, good design, goats and occasional coffee tables.
Doing
It’s been a challenging week, but in a good way.
We’ve been conducting research with people with a diagnosis of severe mental illness to understand more about their experiences of the physical health check service they are eligible for from the NHS.
I often feel nervous before doing research but was particularly anxious about these sessions.
I had concerns about how people might behave and was worried about offending them by using the wrong language or referring to their circumstances in the wrong way.
My worries (as ever) were unfounded.
We met 15 brilliant people who managed to bravely and clearly articulate their stories which gave us really good understanding of what it’s like to live with a diagnosis such as bi-polar and how that relates to their likelihood (or otherwise) to engage with the health services that care for them.
On a practical note, I’m glad we called people beforehand to say hello and explain who we were and what we wanted to chat to them about. This helped to answer any questions, do some housekeeping and build a bit of rapport before the sessions themselves.
It was really challenging to hear stories about and respond appropriately to someone telling you about suicide attempts, bereavement, experiences of abuse or sharing things they may feel ashamed or embarrassed about.
A long walking phone meeting with my colleague Julie proved to be a great way to share thoughts, stories and ideas and to generally decompress.
On reflection I think it’s been some of the most interesting and rewarding research that I’ve ever done.
It has left me feeling a clear responsibility to those who shared their stories with us and I want to make sure we do them justice within the outputs of our work.
It feels like work with true purpose, which I recognise as both a responsibility and a privilege.
On a related note I attended the UXGlasgow ‘mental health special’ on Weds night. It was a great reminder of how great it is to hang out with a bunch of like minded UX folks, albeit virtually. I enjoyed some great talks about happiness, self care, breathing, imposter syndrome, ADHD & mental health at work.
I think we have a lot to learn within our profession about mental health and it’s a hugely important topic that we are not talking openly about enough.
The original motivation for my ‘UX skills to pay the bills’ talk was to try and help to equip UX’ers with the survival skills and mindset you need to help you to navigate tricky projects.
I’ve just given a lecture to some Falmouth Uni students about conducting research for start ups. It’s always a joy to do a bit of teaching as as ever I learned a lot in the process and got some great questions from the students.
Thinking
- Why aren’t coaches more prevalent in all industries outside of professional sport? How the hell are we supposed to know what to do without them? Coaching is available of course but not in the same way. I think we’re missing a trick here.
- I’m really passionate about helping people to reach their potential and there’s nothing quite like watching someone fly. I’m going to dedicate more time to building this into my work.
- The secret to work is making it not feel like work. Walking meetings fit squarely into this category and are the future! Note taking is tricky though, I need to solve that.
- I spotted a Carhartt advert this week and I think their strap line ‘Work in progress’ is a perfect on for most services to adopt. They will never be finished after all and so by definition will always be a work in progress.
- When you design things you fall in love with your ideas. You can’t objectively evaluate them at this time. You’ve got to let time pass, live with them a bit and only then will you be able to spot their flaws. Al Lee likened this to writing vs editing which is a perfect example.
- The ‘dry run’ research session is invaluable. You need to give yourself a chance to test the test script and to say the questions out loud without additional pressures that ‘proper’ sessions bring.
- Wouldn’t it be healthy if you could swap you social media echo chamber with someone else’s to get a more rounded and view of the world. I’d like to be able to choose to have the same ‘information inputs’ as someone I’m interested in on Twitter for example.
- Nice prototyping mantra : ‘Fake it until you have to make it’
Inspiration
I’m huge fan of David Hieatt so it was great to learn more about his story and to hear his wisdom on so many topics on the latest DO lectures podcast.
I love his philosophy and approach to work and life, particularly his ideas around getting better every day. He is a true proponent of slow and steady wins the race as well as a brilliant communicator. His email newsletters are a lesson in communication.
Do get this into your ears asap.
I will go to the DO lectures one day!
The talk of the town has been the new Nike Go Flyease trainers.
They were inspired by 16-year-old @matthewwalzer24 , who has cerebral palsy and wrote to Nike asking for more accessible shoe design for those who struggle with tying laces.
Nike challenged themselves to design a ‘hands free shoe’ and the result looks fantastic.
It’s a great example of good design as something that makes something easier for as many people as possible.
Another great podcast was the latest ‘Don’t Tell Me the Score’ with Nigel Pearson talking about valuing people. I’m a huge believer in applying lessons learnt from sport to other aspects of our life and there is some absolute gold in this episode around how you can bring out the best in people by looking after them properly.
I had the pleasure of working with Stanley Wood when he was at Spotify and I really enjoyed his ‘who do you wish you’d discovered sooner’ twitter thread.
The Russel L. Ackoff (systems thinking) quote ‘It is far better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right’ is an absolute beauty and made me think about this ‘solve the right problem, with the right solution in the right way’ mantra I’ve had in my head for a while.
In goat news, Cronkhall Farm have reportedly made £50k from charging a fiver for people to invite goats to their zoom calls. Surely the finest example of agricultural diversification and pandemic pivoting to date!
Playing
It’s all been about the wood working project this week, fuelled by the purchase of a biscuit jointer which I got very excited about at the weekend.
Best quote from my wife “Why do you keep going on about biscuits?!’
Operation nested side tables is go!
I’ve managed to make the first one (a simple box) that actually contains right angles which is a first for me.
The idea is that it sits alongside the sofa to hold a cuppa and can be turned 90 degrees as a foot rest or ‘occasional’ coffee table.
I’m loving the process of bringing my ideas to life and learning a huge amount from YouTube, Ishitani furniture being my absolute favourite.
It’s also lovely to make a thing and live with it for a bit to see if it’s going to work in the space you’ve got, and then being able to change it to suit.
This burst of furniture dabbling has all been inspired by a furniture making course I did via Domestika last year which I really found useful.
Good weekends all!
