Ann's Rant: Creative Flail and Optimal Solutions

Not so recently, Maribeth Back of Red Shift in San Francisco told me about her concept of 'creative flail'. It describes a stage of creation that we are all familiar with: when everything is possible, nothing is yet clear about the final shape, and it rests with you to make some sense out of it. Depending on the task and the people conducting it, the flail will be longer or shorter and more or less defined. For some of us it is a period of procrastination and deferment, while others use it for discussion, research and refinement. Both approaches work, as the cauldron of the non-conscious mind turns over options, and sharing half-baked ideas with team members helps to sharpen some and winnow others out.

But I'd never heard that slightly alarming but exhilarating phase singled out in this way before, and, further, I was immediately delighted by the choice of imagery. Maribeth herself was slightly apologetic, as if drawing attention to the stage was somehow admitting to a lack of clarity or purpose. Now, the word 'flail' does suggest something poorly formed, like a baby's first arm movements – but isn't that the point? We don't know exactly what the next move will lead to; we just trust that it will come out right if we keep going with it.

It is an important stage in designing and I am talking about it for a couple of reasons here. The first of these is that we are creative and the second is that we work with people whose job it is to create.

Using other people's creative flail as a way of promoting user-centred design is something we've been in the business of doing for some time. Increasingly, evidence-based design (EBD) is becoming popular as a way of supporting the early phase of decision-making. EBD doesn't replace inspiration, of course: it exists to help move from brief to product in a way that can be justified to clients and managers later. But it is helping our cause. Information about people's behaviour in general and that of specifically targetted users is the best form of evidence. Meanwhile, getting it into the system early, at the point when designers are looking – more or less explicitly – for material to base a design upon, meets our greatest aspirations. If only there were always a pro-active usability specialist available at this point to target flailers and supply crucial thought-provoking information.

But what of our own creative flail? The job we do is characterised by its analytic content – whether as researcher or practitioner. We observe, we record, we summarise and report. If we are to talk about evidence it has to be this way... or who would believe us? Who could we persuade?

Let me put the job another way: we produce complex studies by balancing resources, client needs and our own experience of what has been successful in the past (designing methodology); we interpret a mass of data into succinct and meaningful narratives (storytelling); we present the findings that we deem to be useful to our audience in such a way as they may actually read them (advertising, information design); not to mention the promotion we perform to make other professions aware that HCI and usability work exists (see Usability Managers talk Promotion from Within for an example of some in-house teams' public relations work).

So I wasn't just being polite when I said that we are creative. But it doesn't benefit us to draw attention to the fact. We trade on being one of the sober and methodical type, who does not wake up at four in the morning yelling 'Eureka' or wear unusual shirts. And we like precision of a different kind from product designers – not in lines and corners, but in facts and stats.

And we are particularly unhappy with creative flail. It reveals to us anew the intrinsically subjective aspect of much of our work, on top of offending our sense of order.

Yet work in our field examining methodology reveals that methods and templates do not at present go a long way in the hands of people with no aptitude for HCI or usability work. Too little is known; too much is always changing. This is not just protectionism. Experience counts. Insight into motivations counts. Business psychology counts... if the results are to be useful in affecting anything. For instance, anyone can tick a list while watching someone using something, but that data will fly... or sink... depending on what was on the list to start with and what use was made of it thereafter. The hidden work of usability... choosing an approach to meet the task.

We call it preparation. Fine. But the more tolerant we are of that flailing feeling as we plan a new project, the better the final outcome is likely to be. For we will be harnessing more of our potential in exploring the precise nature of the investigation, the particular circumstances and the means we have available. We will be challenging the tried and tested to see if there is a better way to do it this time. We will be closer to our designer colleagues who love to pause on that perilous mountaintop of ultimate choice before committing to a single safe and solid path to reach their goal.

Creative flail... And why didn't I tell you about this fascinating phrase sooner? Because, since June, I have thought back to it from time to time but it was only this morning that I finally knew what I wanted to say. While I appreciate that most flail is rather more constrained by deadlines, let me urge you – after due consideration – to enjoy it and exploit it as creatively as possible.

Associated Link: Who is this woman?

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