// Purposeful Pixels

How I simplified my messy approach to design

It never came to me until I had worked on enough projects and gained real experience

Earlier in the career I recognized a problem with my design approach. It was evident especially in the discovery phases. I was almost going through motions. There was this robotic and dogmatic approach to all problems.

I would not distinguish between projects and I tackled all in a similar fashion. I felt generic, and overwhelmed with guilt I decided to take a step back and find out why was this the case.

It never came to me until I had worked on enough projects and gained real experience.

The problem was my education. I discussed this with a few industry veterans. They agreed that our understanding of design methodologies is awful. It’s polluted with technical jargons that not only confuse us but also those around us. To make it worse we have these unnecessary steps we take in certain stages of a product. These aren’t needed and they have no effect on the product whatsoever. But I guess they make us feel “productive”.

Remember Vaas from Far Cry 3 and his iconic speech on insanity: