How the design-mentality fundamentally changes the way you see the world, even in the most extreme situations.

Design Lingo

Amongst the many things I do, I am a designer (properly known as strategic designer, services designer, research designer, innovation designer, concept designer, whatever fancy term is being marketed in the industry at any given moment). I have been trained to see the world from the perspective of users, so that I could understand their context and so that this insight could inform the creation of better products; products that will improve users’ lives. While I believe that looking at the world from this perspective is in part an innate ability, I think it is mostly a learnt skill. It is something that is drilled into you and honed over time.

In my case, it is mainly the past five years or so that have ingrained it into me. From being introduced to the space of design thinking at uni, to working in startups and then consultancies that use the design process for innovation. Every situation I come across is now broken into the lingo I have learnt during this time. Linguistics, as you know, shapes our perception of the world; the more words we have, the more we can perceive, the more we can notice (think about how Eskimos have around 50 different words for snow and I have but one). And so, the design lingo I have been introduced to in the past helps me deconstruct the world around me and notice things that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Every situation is broken into user journeys (steps a user goes through within an experience), Jobs-to-be-done (the tasks, big and small, a user tries to complete throughout her experience) and pains (obstacles a user may experience throughout the process); every environment is mapped out for its untapped resources, and every problem area is matched against solution kits from different industries. The world becomes a series of experiences to map and a plethora of problems to solve.

Once you see the world in this way, it appears that it cannot be stopped, and as I was about to discover, not even in the most extreme of situations.

What Happened

About three months ago, I went to visit some family in Seattle. We ate, we drank, we explored and then we went rollerskating. Yes, rollerskating — boots with four wheels — because that is what one does in Seattle. Ten minutes in, I was having a ball. This weird, innocent, eclectic sport, where people zoom around in circles, grooving to old pop music. It all felt like a scene out of film set in the 80s. And I was doing alright, grooving and zooming with everyone , albeit more slowly and a little less gracefully, but doing it nevertheless. But then, shortly after my short 10 minutes of glory – I fell. I’m not quite sure how or why, but I did and with that, I broke my leg, and broke it pretty badly. A few spiral fractures in both bones, not fun, not pretty, extremely painful, and let’s just leave that at that.

The paramedics came soon after, and as I was placed inside the ambulance, I began to notice something pretty strange, something I was not expecting to happen. Instead of just thinking about my health, my pain, and how I could handle the situation at hand, I was also making mental notes about how the whole process — the experience of breaking a leg at a roller skating rink — could be improved. It is as though my design-mentality switch was on and could not be turned off. The perspective that has been ingrained into me in the past few years was not leaving me alone, not even in this intense situation; and it did not leave for days to come. From the ambulance and days into recovery, I kept analysing my surrounding, noticing faults in the process and exploring potential solutions.

This article is written as a testament for this immense power of design — a perspective that once ingrained into you, can not be switched off, as well as to share some of the insights I had while recovering.

Humour in the Ambulance

Getting into the ambulance and heading to the Hospital, we had about 30 minutes to kill. I’m in pain, still in semi-shock and the guys in the Ambulance, are just trying to do their job. And as I’m holding up there, trying to keep it together, I notice something — the paramedics were trying to crack jokes. With me, with each other, with my cousin who was trying to be supportive yet not doing too well himself; it was a way to help ease the situation. It occurred to me as indeed, a wonderful technique to do so, they were just not quite good at it. It made me think, how valuable could it be, if paramedics were actually trained in comedy, theatre sports, storytelling etc. Imagine if it was a crucial part of their training, a skill that they were taught and encouraged to practice. Surely, comedy is not the first thing you think of when pondering paramedic training, and yet, once you consider it, it is not extremely far-fetched either, we have all watched Patch Adams (and all have a soft spot for Robin Williams). Thinking about it now, during those 30 mins of pain and anxiety, some decent comedy could probably have gone a long way. In my case, the paramedics’ average sense of humour ended-up being pretty valuable, so I can just imagine, what if they were actually funny? How much better those 30 minutes could have been!?

Timeline is Key

Once at hospital I was admitted to emergency, where you are taken in, assessed, and soon after, prepared for whatever thing they are going to do with you. In my case, it was to be prepared for surgery the following morning, and by preparing, it was placing my bones back in place. Now I’m still not quite sure why this is an important part of the process, seeing that surgery is still taking place the following day but, it seems like it is what is done in these situations. And so, my family was asked to step outside, while two guerrilla doctors (ripped doctors with huge arms), sat down by my bedside and notified me they are about to go through something that may hurt a bit. I have heard about this before, I have friends who have broken things, so it didn’t come across as a shock, and yet, I wasn’t quite ready for what was about to happen. The following moments were the most traumatic moments of my life thus far. Soon after introducing themselves, the doctors began to twist, turn, push and pull my leg, trying to put my bones back in place. I slowly realised, that what I thought may take a moment, or a few minutes, was going to last much longer. How long? I did not know yet, but I soon realised that whatever expectation I had was incorrect.

If you ever tried putting a puzzle together you are probably familiar with the moment where you think two pieces fit, and as you attempt to go ahead with it you come to realise that try what you may, it isn’t going to happen. That is quite similar to the situation that seemed to be enfolding in front of my eyes at the time. The doctors, though they were strong and experienced, could not seem to put together the puzzle, that is realigning my bones. 5 minutes turned to 10, 10 to 15 and the clock kept ticking, all the while, I was screaming. The more I thought we were about to finish, the more this continued, and I began to think, I don’t know how much longer I was going to last. And as that was happening, my design switch made its appearance again. “GIVE ME A TIMELINE!”, I need to know how far into this we are. Are we half way? Are we almost done? Have we only just started?

I experienced this same problem just a week beforehand when a friend and I got lost while hiking at Red Wood National Park and had to spend the night in the forest (the longer story is worth its own article). Our lights ran out and we were caught in blinding darkness for about 11 hours. We had no idea what time it was and how close we were to dawn. Have we been there for hours, and morning is around the bend? Or has it been only a short while and we are still very far off? This lack of insight, of where we were in the process drove us nuts as was doing the same to me now at the hospital bed.

Lack of progress visibility is a familiar problem that many products have been solving for, for a long time — most often solved through giving a user a progress bar, a kind of timeline. Think about the airline ticket process, the timeline at the top of the screen that helps you see that you are currently booking a flight and later will progress towards payment. Similarly, there is the family Dominos Pizza app where you can see when your order is being prepared and when it is on its way to you. Lying there in agony, not sure how long I had left, I needed some kind of a progress bar to guide me.

I attempted to convey this insight to my doctors. They didn’t say much, just something along the lines of “soon”. But soon, was not soon enough; the whole process took around 45 min or so and by the end of it, I was pretty much traumatised. I don’t know if it would have indeed made much of a difference to my endurance or pain, nor if the doctors even knew themselves how long this would have taken. But, something tells me that if they would have better prepared me with regards to the process I was about to go through, how long it may take, and then check-in with regards to our progress through it, I would have managed at least a little better. I would have mentally prepared myself, and not continuously think that things were about to end, only to discover I was wrong, time and time again.

Look Up!

Once I was put back together, or there about, I was wheeled out to go through CT. I just remember being chauffeured around the hospital while on the bed, the first of many trips. And while being moved around, I found myself looking up at the blank ceiling, looking up at the BLANK ceiling,

THE CEILING IS BLANK!

AND I’M LOOKING AT IT!

ALL THE TIME!

I’m being moved around the hospital while in agony, while I’m anxious and tired; all I’m craving now, is a distraction or some support or anything to keep my mind from thinking about of all the above, and yet all I can see is the ceiling, AND THE CEILING IS BLANK!

Rewind a few years and I’m at hospital again, this time I’m here for my brother who is having an operation (something small, don’t worry about it, but thanks for momentarily caring). At some point, while exploring the building, I come across what I thought was pretty great at the time. There were drawings on the walls, land animals and sea creatures. It seemed to be intended as a distraction for kids, ushering them on their way through hospital, solving for this need for a distraction. I remember appreciating the thought and thinking it was brilliant piece of user-centric design. And yet fast-forward to me being chauffeured around the hospital and I began to wonder, did those designers really immersed themselves in the experience of what it is like being a patient?

As long as you are in hospital, at least in the first days, you are moved around from one place to another on a wheely bed, and while on it, you can only look up! You can’t see the walls; you can just see the ceiling. And the ceiling is blank! “Put something on it!” I heard my inner designer say. Give me reaffirmation quotes like “everything is going to be alright”, give me art, give me short stories, give me jokes, give me sea creatures, just give me something to think about so that I don’t have to think about what I’m going through right now. Patients see this blank ceiling every day, no one else notices it because no one else is being shipped on a bed from place to place. And so, as I was being wheeled, pain running through, my bones cracking, I found myself wondering about the untapped potential of this blank ceiling.

Many Other Things

The above examples were based on the experience I had in the first few hours of having broken my leg, the scariest, most intense, painful times. But, it did not stop there, over the following week at hospital I would keep having these design thoughts pop-up all the time: too many people to remember, the ability of films and entertainment to assist in pain relief as a replacement for opiates, the loneliness of being far from your support network and the list goes on. And of course, the thought process extended much beyond the hospital, I subsequently found myself thinking about the potential of a better experience with the insurance company, airline, the rehab process that followed etc. My designer mind was working overtime, dissecting every moment and trying to improve the process for myself, and for everyone who may experience this in the future

Wrapping Up

So what can we learn from this?

Well first, it seems that in my own experience, thinking like this was a form of a coping mechanism, an escape route that my mind could run to when things got tough and I needed to distract my nervous system from the pain. That is most definitely a use for design that I have never considered previously and which I would love to explore with other designers who injured themselves.

More broadly, I think that the main lesson to take was realising the amazing potential of a design mentality in fundamentally changing the way we think. Ever since getting into this space, I started seeing things differently, seeing problems to be solved everywhere I look. This experience showed me that the design mindset, once ingrained into you, runs so deep that it does not go away, not even in the most extreme of situations. Perhaps even on the contrary, extreme situations such as this rather exacerbates the design mentality, as you get to be immersed in true empathy for the situation.

Further expanding on that point, my experience showed me the immense value of true immersion. When designers try to solve problems, one of our tools is to become our user, immersing ourselves in their world and take on their persona. Yet, many times we do not have the time or resources for immersion and even when we do, we often participate in some limited version of it, a proxy to the real thing. For two weeks I unintentionally immersed myself in the world of a patient and I can confidently say, that true immersion, is much more powerful, perhaps second to none.

What About You?