Creativity

I always try to focus on two things when I’m creating anything, whether it's a user’s journey, a user interface, or a piece of art.

1. Understanding the given subject—I always try to carefully find and examine the elements, ideas, their relationships, and their interactions. Often this requires looking at things ourside of the given scope as well.
   
   
2. Choreographing the given elements and ideas into a coherent and consistent system—often new connections and new concepts are found in this stage. This is where the whole becomes greater than the total sum.

Research

To me, research is critical. Not necessarily because the hypothesis that we put together, that is the design, is wrong, but because it’s often incomplete as it is extremely difficult to understand the users completely—what they think what they want, and what they do.

For this reason, I always try to use various methods throughout the design process—from looking at user behavior data, reading up on secondary research reports, auditing and compiling competitive analysis, to conducting surveys and usability testings.

I find solid research fundamental to the success of the immediate outcome but also the agility and nimbleness of a team and its product in the ever-changing digital world.

Design Studies

Design explorations are one of the key steps where understanding deepens, and more importantly, new possibilities are discovered. And by connecting these new dots, the system evolves into something greater than the simple sum of facts and elements. When I design something, I try my best to go wide with explorations—let myself and my team go wild and look into as many elements and relationships as possible.

Wild, controlled

In such explorations, it is vital to have a structure in these wild explorations in order to high quality designs in a timely manner.. Here are some of the key elements of good controlled exploration:

• Clearly defined scope
• Dimensions of exploration
• Acceptance criteria

Form is a function

A designer's job is NOT making things pretty. But I also believe that prettiness is useful in design.

I believe that everything a designer does can be and has to be explained in a logical way. For example, that extra negative space is, sometimes, necessary, not because it looks good, but because it allows the hero element to do its job of making an impact.

Minimalism is not a Style

Minimalism is often understood as one of the styles—large dislay type text combined with small body text, ample use of negative space, simple background photograph, etc.

In my mind, minimalism is a process framework that dictates how design decisions are made—add only when necessary; this means having a rational reason for everything that is added. Once again, form is a function.

Opinions in Design

That everything in design can be explained does not mean that all decisions can be made simply by following logic. In design, almost always, there are multiple perfectly reasonable and valid options, even with users tests and good explorations.

This is why opinions matter. I do not mean personal preferences. Opinion in design is a set of concepts and choices that are consistently applied by all members of the team. A mature design team usually forms a set of such principles and is able to move faster and produce high quality designs.

For a team to achieve this is no small matter. I always find these key points helpful:

• Alignment among team members through training, sharing, and co-designing activities
• Openness and sharing as the core of the team's operation
• A safe environment that allows failures to lead to new opportunities

A good designer tells stories.

A story doesn't have to be a sequence of events as in conventional narrative. It could be a static system of things, and we can still tell a powerful story of how these things are related to each other, help and work with each other, and most importantly, how the user comes into this picture.

This applies to everything we do as designers. Even a small form begins with an opening (title and introduction), the build-up (filling out forms), and the dramatic climax (The bit submit button), and the conclusion ("Thank you!").

Here are some of the key principles I always keep in mind:

• Always start from the beginning. Even when I am just designing one piece.
• My job as a designer is to guide the user. Colors, components, animations are all means to that goal.
• Always actively experience my design. This means constantly traning myself to be in the user's shoes.

Empathy is Conversation

The user is more than just a collection of survey answers or bullet points on an empathy map. They are complex, constantly learn, and change. This means you always have to look at the design from systemic perspective and consider how every step may change the user's mental model. This means that the design has to be a story and converstaion.

• Always consider how each step of the experience may change the user and their mental model. Consider what the downstream impact might be, and utilize it.
• You have to formulate an opinion (=a mental model of concepts, elements, and workflows), and share with the user. Even if this one piece may not be what the user said they might like, as long as it is part of a larger coherent system, the user will understand and be successful.
• And of course, wait for the user’s response, just like you would in any good and real conversation.

Tell the user your story to start a conversation.

“I think this is a good way to work. What do you think?”