The Roads Not Taken

Imagine navigating forest trails that skirt the undergrowth and roam between the trees, some obscured beneath carpets of leaves and others wide and well-trodden and seemingly inevitable. Is this not dissimilar to how we design—following the forks in the road until the destination presents itself?

The solutions we arrive at are the culmination of a seemingly endless array of choices, both big and small, from pixel nudges to strategic pivots. Having arrived we look back, only to find the way behind us occluded, cluttered, indecipherable, and often impossible to retrace.

Yet retrace we must.

To rationalise our design work is to defend its integrity, and the measure of how it stands up to scrutiny reflects the steadfastness with which we present it. Understanding and articulating how and why we traversed the forest is an essential skill core to the act of designing itself, and design crits and stakeholder presentations are crucibles from which our work emerges battered and bruised, but stronger. The designer learns to receive and respond to feedback, defend their decisions, and appear to have an answer for every probing inquisition.

For it is not enough to admit ‘I stumbled here’.

Design crits and stakeholder presentations are crucibles from which our work emerges battered and bruised, but stronger.

Happy accidents

As a child, I spent most of the summer holidays with my grandparents, and every morning I would sit with my bowl of cornflakes (with a sprinkle of sugar because this was allowed at nan’s house) on the sofa by my grandad sitting comfortably upright in his armchair, and watch Bob Ross make his happy accidents. In painting, according to Ross, “we don’t make mistakes”.

Ross’ iconic aphorism betrays a simple philosophy. Mistakes are a consequence of ignorance or misunderstanding; accidents stem from inattention or inexperience. The difference between accidents (or slips) and mistakes in human action is explained by Don Norman in The Design of Everyday Things. According to Norman, the division occurs at the level of the intention. If someone’s intention is not appropriate when they act, this is a mistake, but if the action itself is not what was intended, this is a slip.

For example, a typo is a slip rather than a mistake, because the intention was appropriate. But setting a thermostat needlessly high is a mistake because it stems from a lack of understanding about how temperature control systems work (however, I would argue that there is another psychological bias at play here—the illusion of control).

Slips are usually made when people are performing (sometimes surprisingly complex) routine tasks when the automatic overrides the intentional—what psychologist Daniel Kahneman refers to as ‘System 1’ thinking. Mistakes are the domain of ‘System 2’ thinking, wherein attention is directed to the demands of effortful mental activities.

To return to Bob Ross’ happy accidents, if one is willing to embrace slips, not only does this contribute to the unravelling of ignorance and the reduction of future accidents (practice making perfect, after all), but it opens up a world of new horizons. The forest reveals itself to us in new ways.

The paths not taken

Exploration is a critical stage in the design process. To leap to a solution, regardless of skill and experience, is suspect. Successful design explorations not only maximise the range, variety, and daring of potential interventions but share the characteristic of interrogating and reformulating the supposed problem at hand. In other words, the act of exploring both tracks towards a destination whilst asking if that is indeed the correct destination.

If it seems that the purpose of exploring is to minimise doubt, to ‘map the terrain’, this is not always the case. Mapping territory exposes not only that which is not (yet) known, but what is still unknowable—revealing the boundaries does not per se remove them. This is the paradox of knowledge, the idea that the more we learn, the more we realize how little we know.

Mapping territory exposes not only that which is not (yet) known, but what is still unknowable—revealing the boundaries does not per se remove them. This is the paradox of knowledge, the idea that the more we learn, the more we realize how little we know.

Design explorations are also limited by tangible factors: project scope and timescales, the wider working context, and the designer’s experience, patience, and desire to explore. The boundaries of historical conjuncture and cultural imaginary come into play, as well as the boundaries of language and vocabulary. There is so much unsaid and so much unheard. There are always untold more prospects.

So there are intrinsic and extrinsic limitations to design exploration. In other words, those within our control and those without. They may seem arbitrary, and often they are, foreclosing potential routes of endeavour and shuttering paths to secret and unexplored terrain where treasures lie. In such instances, it is always worth asking if it’s possible to hop the fence and see where those paths lead.

But one cannot roam forever. To risk stretching the analogy too far, it becomes difficult to see the forest for the trees. All designers know this feeling—the sense of going around in circles. Each choice we make, each slip or happy accident, should nonetheless be in service to the purpose of our project.

When deep in the furrows of exploratory work, it can be easy to lose sight of our original intention. One could argue that it’s necessary to do so—that to bind oneself at every step to goals that may not always end up being appropriate frustrates the provocative and exploratory nature that is the essence of creative work. But at some point, we must be guided back to the track.

The way back

The flâneur wanders without purpose. Their psychogeographical ramblings of the urban environment are an aesthetic and affective experience that we should all entertain now and again. To stroll and observe without an objective is an admirable objective.

The flâneur need not explain why or how they arrived; indeed, having no destination, they cannot arrive. But for designers, strolling still serves an intention. For this reason, I find the term design discovery to be more appropriate than exploration. Whilst exploration is necessarily driven by curiosity, it is open-ended. Our figurative forest stroller could return to where they had entered the trees and would be richer for the experience. But to discover is to uncover that which was previously unknown or unrecognized.

To design is to discover.

For designers, the act of rationalising our work and interrogating the decisions we consciously or unconsciously make helps reveal what has been overlooked, ignored, or avoided, and acknowledging this affords us the opportunity to retrace our steps and try the roads not taken. This is where the perspective of other designers, stakeholders, and users is critical—to be asked why, and in our attempts to answer, to understand why.

Robert Frost, despite common misreadings of his poem, did not choose the road less travelled by, for “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same”. He went with his gut, took a chance, and embraced his ignorance.

Only after the fact, some time “ages and ages hence”, would he tell with a sigh how he chose the one less travelled by. And it is this small fabrication that makes all the difference. According to Katherine Robinson, “the poem becomes about how—through retroactive narrative—the poet turns something as irrational as an ‘impulse’ into a triumphant, intentional decision.”

Does this sound familiar?

As I mentioned earlier, it’s often understood that we cannot stumble towards our deliverables. As Robinson goes on to explain, “Decisions are nobler than whims, and this reframing is comforting, too, for the way it suggests that a life unfolds through conscious design.”

Well, anyone who understands the creative process knows this is nonsense. However, poking at the unconscious calls we make helps us identify the patterns that can guide us through the forest the next time we are lost. The benefit of experience is that we can comfortably wander, confident that when necessary we can trace our way back.

Bob Ross wasn’t teaching viewers how to paint, but how to listen, and through listening cultivate a richer predilection for discovery. If we are curious and patient, our goal is sound, and our approach is well-informed, we don’t make mistakes, we make happy accidents.