David Hoang — Writing — craft

The obsession over craft

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT

In conversations about software design (brand, product, content, etc.), the word you constantly hear now is craft.

Recruiters will post they are looking for a designer with a high bar for craft. I empathize with those who feel frustrated about the discourse of a high bar for craft as they often are told it is important with no clear definition of the expectations.

Craft refers to a skill or ability to create something by hand, often involving high precision, artistry, and expertise in using particular tools or materials. Craft emphasizes quality, technique, and a deep understanding of the materials, often with a focus on creating unique or custom items rather than mass-produced goods. In a broader sense, "craft" can also refer to the meticulous process of honing a skill or art form, regardless of whether it's physical (like woodworking, pottery, or metalworking) or intellectual (like writing or product design).

People get annoyed about hearing about craft as they know being a good designer requires other skills to succeed: strong communication skills, a growth mindset, and ability to collaborate. However, I must share the hard truth.

Craft is an unavoidable foundation as a designer.

Not having strong craft foundations as a team member is like a basketball player who understands different plays, communicates well, and is a great teammate, but cannot shoot, pass, or dribble. Let's look at the three areas that craft elevates: culture, artifacts, and trust.

Craft represents culture

Alastair Simpson, VP of Design at Dropbox, recently spoke at Leading Design London about 'Building a culture of craft.' In an interview with Simpson, he reflects:

I believe that design must be a strong cross-functional partner to any and every cross-functional discipline in order to have company and product wide impact. We have to also be product tinkers as well as designers. However, as designers, our number one priority must be our design craft and building products that solve our customers’ problems, and also delight them in moments that matter. We can’t lose sight or focus on the main thing that we are accountable for. The more passion we pour into our craft and creating outcomes we love, the more pride we have in our work. This feeds into the flywheel of culture and enabling a care for craft in everything that our company does.

The saying is, "Culture is defined by the worst behavior you tolerate." I wholeheartedly believe in this statement 100%. This applies to the culture of collaboration, how we respect one another, and to the craft of our work. If junior designers look at the Figma file of a lead designer, and it’s hard to use, that reflects what the team is willing to tolerate. This isn't about using frames/groups or auto layout; it's how what you create is valuable for others. It may sound pedantic until you look at engineering excellence. They would not tolerate inconsistent code or unclear comments.

Leading through the craft is caring about managing the work. Mistakes will happen and the culture of craft is putting the attention and care to fix them.

Well-crafted artifacts represent our work

In Issue 144, I wrote about Creating value with artifacts. Whether we like it or not, design value is contained in well-crafted artifacts. Look at the most important artifacts of our time: The Code of Hammurabi, the Rosetta Stone of Egypt, the Terracotta Army in China, the Liberty Bell during the American Revolution, and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership from Cybertron. These artifacts are well-crafted and designed because of the story they hold to represent the work.

The digital artifacts we create such as keynote presentations, drawings of interfaces, research insights, and brand guidelines should also withstand the test of time. Design work is deep and intangible: hours of interviews with customers, understanding the codebase and technical feasibility, mapping out how the business works, etc. I understand it is frustrating to be great at these design skills and yet be assessed by the visuals of an artifact.

Jenn Spriggs once told our team a story of her lessons in fashion design that conveys this. Presenting the dress you’re working on with all the buttons facing out consistently allows focus on more important conversations. Getting all the details right gets stakeholders focused on the most important discussions. By creating well-crafted artifacts, we then focus on grander conversations.

Craft is trust

Design is about consistency, and consistency builds trust. If you have a high bar for craft, it increases the trust your teammates have for you. Let’s go back to the basketball example. When a teammate passes the ball to you on offense, your ability to consistently make shots increases trust exponentially. Scaling craft across an entire company is no small feat; a huge transformation. Increasing trustworthy craft means you know the teammate next to you will sweat the details as you should.

In software, excellence is often described as high performance, reliability, and addressing bug fixes. Engineering should not solely be responsible for upholding these standards and needs design, product, and other counterparts to uphold the level of quality together. If forms submitted are successful 99/100 times instead of 100/100, this is the beginning of trust erosion from our customers.

Recap

To be clear, a high bar for craft without the work ethic, ability to respectfully collaborate, and ability to articulate your work won’t cut it—those are key requirements to be a good designer. My point is not that other skills don’t matter—they do. However, there is a sequence of importance, and craft is first. This is why it’ll inevitably be the first thing you’re evaluated on. Improve on craft and invest the majority of your time in it. The rest will work itself out and unlock greater conversations.

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

The role of taste (and what it means)

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Happy Sunday from Brooklyn, NY. This week, many new memories made were in familiar places in my former neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. I lived in the neighborhood near the promenade overlooking the iconic bridge named after the borough and skyline of Manhattan for four years—a place that still feels like home every time I visit.

In addition to being home to the best Sardinian restaurant in New York, Brooklyn Heights is where Adam Yauch Park is named after the legendary member of the Beastie Boys, MCA. Formerly, Squibb Park, the park was renamed to dedicate Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012 (RIP MCA). Brooklyn Heights is where Yauch grew up, and his mom Frances still lived there at the time I was there. This isn’t an important prelude, but a segue to talk about a man who had a close relationship with the Beastie Boys and many other iconic musicians: Rick Rubin. This week, we’ll talk about Rubin as a proxy for the role of taste in design.

A few weeks ago, 60 Minutes posted their 60 Minutes interview, a sit-down with Anderson Cooper and Rick Rubin, a record producer, and co-founder of Def Jam Records. This interview is part of the launch of Rubin’s new book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. The tweet from the 60 Minutes account sparked many thoughts about Rubin, such as, “What does he actually do then?”

<aside class="x-post-card" aria-label="Post from 60 Minutes on X"> <blockquote class="x-post-card__quote" cite="https://x.com/60Minutes/status/1614785392456105985"> <p lang="en" dir="ltr">“I have no technical ability. And I know nothing about music.”<br><br>Music producer Rick Rubin says he can barely play any instruments, but says artists come to him because of “the confidence I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel.” <a class="sr-only" href="https://t.co/zLrPYRUjvs">https://t.co/zLrPYRUjvs</a> <a class="sr-only" href="https://t.co/KRZWLCpSB2">pic.twitter.com/KRZWLCpSB2</a></p> </blockquote> <footer class="x-post-card__meta"> <cite class="x-post-card__author"><span aria-hidden="true">— </span>60 Minutes (@60Minutes)</cite> <a class="x-post-card__date" href="https://x.com/60Minutes/status/1614785392456105985" rel="noopener noreferrer"><time datetime="2023-01-16">January 16, 2023</time></a> </footer> </aside>

Wait, what on Earth does Rubin actually do then? Is he one of those “I have an app idea” guys (it’s always a guy) who needs the talents of product developers who can actually build the app? Surely someone who hasn’t been a designer cannot have design taste because they haven’t spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to the Rhode Island School of Design, right? The answer is, Rubin is kind of like all these things, but he’s damn good at his job, which is having great taste, spotting talent, and popularizing it. Rubin represented artists such as the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and the litany of legends go on.

Let’s talk about taste and the role it plays in creativity and software. “Taste” undefined is vague like those words that generalize without substance, like “cultural fit.” In essence, taste is curating subjectivity in a way that brings objectivity to your vision. It’s the ability to say, “this is dope, and I’ll tell you in a detailed manner why it is.” Taste is being able to articulate why you enjoy the Riot in Belgium’s remix of Chromeo’s Bonafied Lovin’ more than the original.

Everyone has taste, but not all of it is good. In fact, much of it is bad. For example, I could tell you I love Nickelback and listen to it every waking minute of my life (to be clear, I don’t) but that doesn’t mean my taste is good in comparison to the taste of others. Taste also doesn't equate to things you like. I love watching The Expendables or Jean-Claude Van Damme films but would absolutely not equate that to my film curation of great taste.

Taste without credibility doesn’t go far

There was a reason artists like LL Cool J were sending demo tapes to Rick Rubin’s dorm room at NYU to get it in front of him. His taste was respected and trend-setting. There are two ways to get respect for your taste. The first is Rubin's way, where you have such a grasp on what you like that it influences how other people like it. The second is having such a pedigree in the work you've done in your craft that people respect your taste. As a designer and builder, the second one is your greatest power.

Articulating taste

One of my favorite series is Detail by the late, great Kobe Bryant on ESPN. In this series, Bryant breaks down the specific attributes of what makes certain players great—a great comparison of how great taste can be articulated. Saying something is modern or on brand without any articulation of why is not taste. It's saying a very obvious thing with no substance.

Creating value with artifacts

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Artifact: An object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest.

Artifacts are powerful objects. They guide, galvanize, and hold history. These are tools that move humanity forward. In building products and companies, digital artifacts are crucial.

What great artifacts do

An artifact is a document, but not all documents are artifacts. I talk to my friend Ha Phan a lot about different ways to make artifacts. The short answer is there is no wrong way to do it. Each one is unique and serves a purpose. Let's reflect on some of the attributes that make an artifact great.

Abstract complexity

Systems and concepts can be hard to interpret. One wrong word and someone might spawn a completely different mental model. That's where a simple artifact can create quick alignment.

Push stories ahead

Have you ever presented in a meeting and people start asking questions before you can finish? I've probably done this myself. Moving the story along allows people to pay attention and follow your tempo. Sharing an artifact can give people something to pay attention to. It could even be a MacGuffin. What's a MacGuffin? If you saw Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, you asked yourself, "Why are they looking for this random dagger?" That's a MacGuffin—an unnecessary object that moves things forward. The equivalent of a MacGuffin in design storytelling is when you wave the magic wand and ask people to move forward with assumptions. It helps move you to the point. Aspire to create something more than a MacGuffin though. All I'm saying is you can keep it dead simple.

Leave a clear footprint

Artifacts capture and memorialize certain moments. A danger is when artifacts become redundant or misinterpreted without context. Avoid those working docs that are never updated by someone who isn't at the company anymore.

When someone can review and can clearly understand the context of an artifact, you know it's good. It should not require voiceover or verbal context. Otherwise, the artifact is pointless. Guiding artifacts have a nomenclature and visual language that's easy to understand. If you try to be too sophisticated, the barrier to comprehending makes it pointless.

Examples of artifacts

There's no wrong way to make an artifact and there are multiple fidelities. The main purpose is you use them, share them with others, and have them guide you. I'll share a few I've made at One Medical as examples. Though I'd love to share some artifacts that I use today, it's too soon to share them in public!

Drawings

At times, you don't want artifacts to be too prescriptive, especially when you're leading other people. Avoid making artifacts that feel too solution-oriented or prescriptive. I loved sharing low-fidelity sketches with the product designers and researchers on my team to generate ideas. This is a sketch of some of our initial ideas for our virtual therapy platform.

This is one of the development points of my drawing style. Strive for high-fidelity conversation and low-fidelity production.

Maps

I love Alissa Briggs' talk Maps and Markers and refer to this often. Maps help plot where you need to go. A strategy, in its simplest form, is a map that guides you to your goal. This could be someone drawing on the dirt on a hiking trail or putting sticky notes on an ecosystem map. We plotted an ecosystem map with product and clinical leaders in this example. What you see (blurred) were key conversations memorialized in what would be a digital artifact.

Mapping our One Medical Ecosystem (intentionally blurred)

Maps encourage people to refine and build. The act of a map is to start the journey.

Making a vision book

One project I was most proud of at One Medical was a vision book we shared with our board and execs on where the future of the company could go. We created a pitch book, just like one in my agency days. It was really fun to put together and tell a story.

We printed out several copies and shared the narrative with our coworkers and stakeholders. This invited people to participate in a vision vs. it being handed down to them from the mountains. Their markups allowed us to infuse their perspectives in the vision and make it a part of the updated artifact.

Try making artifacts

Don't underestimate the power of making an artifact. If you don't know where to start, make a simple drawing or diagram. Share it with a colleague to see if it's helpful. As you build a conversation around it, it'll prove its value. Finally, making artifacts is fun. I wish you luck in your artifact-making.

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

Mastery for generalists

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

When I was on the Product team at One Medical, our clinical and Ops teams were critical partners in how we shipped work. It was common to visit the offices to observe (going to gemba). During my four years at the health tech company, I learned about the various roles on clinical teams: primary care providers, registered nurses, care navigators, specialists, phlebotomists, and many more. In my research work, I spent the majority of the time with primary care providers (generalists).

"Why did you decide to be a generalist instead of a specialist?", I'd ask each provider. What compelled them to pursue general care vs. being a specialist? Primary care physicians experience more burnout and specialists make more money. The truth is you make more money as a specialist, so what would compel someone to pursue general care? The answer was consistent: to have a broader range in which to care for their patients' health.

The path for specialists is more clear than generalists. If one chooses the generalist path, what does mastery look like? The notion of mastery as a generalist sounds oxymoronic. Let's challenge that and identify how to grow in your craft in a generalist role. In order to master being a generalist, let's reflect on how to know if you are a generalist, the impact they make, and leveling up as generalist practitioners.

You might be a generalist...

If you grew up in the 90s and are experiencing lower back pain, you may remember comedian Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck" routine: "If you've been on the television more than five times describing what the tornado sounds like, you might be a redneck." We can remix that and play it back with being a generalist:

If you can't decide if you want to be a product manager, designer, or engineer, you might be a generalist
If you find yourself always wanting to learn new things outside of what you do, you might be a generalist
If you highly enjoy collaborating with every department, you might be a generalist
If you get excited about trying out emerging technology and tools, you might be a generalist
If you get bored by doing one thing, you might be a generalist
If you're comfortable hiring people better than you at everything, you might be a generalist

Generalists are people who love variety, connecting the dots, and are curious. In contrast, specialists usually focus and go deeper on a certain practice. I use the clinical metaphor above a lot when describing generalists and specialists. A brain surgeon could conduct a physical if needed the same way a primary care provider could do certain operations in the case of an emergency. However, based on the level of skill and precision, a specialist is more effective. Every designer can contribute to a design system and having a specialist in design systems will merit in more effective outcomes.

Why be a generalist?

"Jack of all trades, master of none" can sound negative—almost implying one isn't good at anything. Do you ever feel like you don't fit into a specialty? Being a generalist allows flexibility and has broader range in what you can do. This is a great skill for early stage startups when wearing multiple hats is common. As the company grows, it'll specialize at scale, and it makes sense. You don't want your generalist co-founder to continue being responsible for people experience or finance and bring in the specialists. What happens to people when they relinquish the said hats? You're able to freelance and move around more. There might be a new initiative that needs to get spun up. If you're interested in management, many people managers are generalists.

Generalists spark alchemy

In the article "Generalists CEOs Not Specialists Spur Innovation," there is a great excerpt on how generalists spark innovation:

"Under generalist CEOs, companies tend to engage in more 'exploitative' innovation, which involves improving or refining something that already exists, and also more 'exploratory' innovation — that is, engaging in a risky search for radical and transformative innovation. However, the difference between specialist CEOs and generalists is especially pronounced in exploratory innovation."

You don't see many specialist CEOs unless the business does something specific to it. A generalist can start an important initiative and collaborate with specialists to drastically improve it.

Building mastery as a generalist

"Mastery as a generalist" is an oxymoron, but let's embrace the duality. How does one become a better generalist? Great teams need a blend of generalists and specialists.

Be an expert at learning

If there's one specialty a generalist has, it's learning to learn. Build familiarity in a discipline enough to understand the mechanics, develop experience, and when it scales, find a specialist. If you've ever had a manager who understands what you do because they've done it before, they can build more advocacy for the effort of your work. A designer understanding how the software development cycle works can anticipate questions that come up.

Understand every role

Whether as UI Designer, Information Architect, Marketing Designer, Motion Designer, Researcher, or Product Designer, I've worked in dozens of roles. Understanding everyone's roles and responsibilities helps you influence at a higher scale since you have a sense of what everyone is doing. It allows you to give better input and direction.

Build connective skills

Understand how every org works and connecting the dots across them. One of the services I was most passionate about at One Medical was pediatrics and family practice. Whenever I had a coffee break or free time, I'd make time to connect with people who were passionate about that program and ways to support it. Learn how to synthesize, storytell, and connect to the big picture.

Mastering the generalist path means everyone will be better than you at something, but you're better than everyone at every little thing.

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

Being a generalist does not mean the work is shallow. It's right sizing the amount of upskill needed to get the job done. If the path of a generalist resonates with you, continue diversifying your skill portfolio and extend your range.

Jodorowsky's Product Roadmap

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I’ll share two stories you may not have heard of. These are stories of “the greatest film never made” and “the most important dead company in Silicon Valley.” This is a story about what happens when projects with uncompromising visions collide with the production process to make it happen (and keep it alive).

In the 1970s, film director Alejandro Jodorowsky took on what people said was the impossible task: a film adaptation of Dune. If you don’t know who Jodorowsky is, he is a filmmaker known for his avant-garde and wild ideas. Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert in 1965 and considered by some critics to be the best science fiction book ever written—the bible of science fiction. A film adaptation was often believed to be impossible due to the epic length and many storylines of the novel.

From the beginning, Jodorowsky had a grand vision, and names such as Salvador Dalí, Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, and Pink Floyd were set to star in the film. He even offered to pay Dalí a fee of $100,000 per hour. Personally, I think that’s a pretty good rate in 1974. Jodorowsky had an uncompromising vision, proclaiming that there would be no script notes, and the film had to be produced 100% aligned with how he imagined it.

In addition to the star power of the on-screen talent, the designers who Jodorowsky recruited might be lesser known to the general public, but perhaps had a larger impact. This design cast included Chris Foss (a well-known science fiction cover artist), Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius in the comic book world), and H.R. Giger. Jodorowsky would lead his team of spiritual warriors who would make Dune come to life on the big screen.

The team of spiritual warriors spent $2 million of the $9.5 million budget on pre-production, with the film being about 14 hours long, and he wanted the film to be 20 hours. No rational production studio would take the risk on Jodorowsky’s massive vision, and the hope of this film actually being produced collapsed. With the project dead, the rights were sold to producer Dino De Laurentiis in 1984 (yes, he’s the grandfather of Giada from The Food Network), who ultimately hired David Lynch to direct. All that was left of Jodorowsky’s Dune was a book of concepts and storyboards the size of a Yellow Pages phone book.

The dream was over.

Jodorowsky’s Dune is a prime example of an uncompromised vision that never made it to reality, and there are many other industries that have similar stories, such as technology and startups. Let’s take a look at another story in Silicon Valley. You may not have heard of General Magic, but you are likely familiar with the iPod, iPhone, and Android phones.

The year was 1989 and Apple Inc. was headed by John Sculley, the former Pepsi CEO whom co-founder Steve Jobs hired, and who ultimately fired Jobs. Without Jobs at the helm, the computer company was looking for new product innovation. Apple employee Marc Porat, known for his entrepreneurial spirit and big ideas, convinced Sculley that the future of computing would be a partnership of computer, communications, and consumer electronics companies. Known as the Paradigm project, the initiative lacked traction internally at Apple. Porat took the initiative and spun it out as its own company separate from Apple. General Magic was born. Porat recruited two key Apple engineers, Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson, to join this ragtag team of magicians to build the future of computing.

General Magic worked on an operating system called Magic Cap designed with mobile computing in mind, which was a wild idea in the early 90s when you still had to call the internet to connect. Magic Cap used the metaphor of rooms as a virtual office you could navigate on your mobile device. General Magic was able to get further in production than Jodorowsky simply by existing and still having money to work on their vision.

As the General Magic team continued to innovate, Apple would release a portable digital assistant called the Apple Newton. This was done with Sculley still as CEO of Apple and without General Magic’s knowledge. The product was a flop. From a vision and execution perspective, if General Magic was Jodorowsky’s Dune, then the Apple Newton was David Lynch’s Dune.

General Magic was able to get further than Jodorowsky’s Dune in terms of tangible results, but they also struggled with compromising on their vision. Somehow, the company was able to IPO in 1995 without an actual product, likely with investors making a bet on the team’s vision that still hadn’t been productionalized. Four years after their IPO, a product was finally rushed to market without major adoption by consumers.

The dream was over.

The greatest film never made and Silicon Valley’s most important dead startup never achieved their visions. Or did they? How is success defined? Is there such a thing as being too ahead of your time, or the vision being too big? Without such big dreams, would we continue to build a faster horse?

Should these two visions have compromised in order to survive? In hindsight, some may argue they should have, but would it have been the same impact?

What remained in the concept art from Jodorowsky’s Dune lived on in a way the film director likely hadn’t hoped for. George Lucas would create a little-known film called Star Wars in 1977. In one of the most iconic opening scenes in film history, it was very reminiscent of Dune’s storyboards for the opening. H.R. Giger, one of Jodorowsky’s artists on Dune, went on to work with Ridley Scott on the sci-fi horror film Alien. Giger brought his work style into the film that let the world know that in space, no one can hear you scream. Ridley Scott was also approached by Dino De Laurentiis about directing Dune (the David Lynch one). Due to a personal tragedy, Scott dropped out and upon returning instead directed a film called Blade Runner, which borrowed work from Moebius for the art direction.

The list of former General Magic employees reads like a hall of fame of tech giants. Tony Fadell went on to invent the iPod, co-invent the iPhone, and start Nest. Megan Smith went on to be a VP at Google. Kevin Lynch went on to create design/code editing software called Dreamweaver and later became a lead engineer on Apple Watch. He’s also the Apple exec often mistaken for Bill Gates due to their resemblance. Andy Hertzfeld invented Google Circles, which led to Google+ (he did useful things too!). Andy Rubin went on to invent the Android operating system, later acquired by Google. He also is a really terrible human being, so we’ll stop there. Even the low-level employees found success after General Magic. Pierre Omidyar left the scrappy startup to start his own company, which he called eBay.

Forty-six years after Jodorowsky first put together his phonebook-sized vision book, acclaimed director Denis Villeneuve would take on the ambitious project of Dune. With films like Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049 on his résumé, there is no doubt that the work of Jodorowsky’s concept book inspired Villeneuve.

Tony Fadell was just a college grad when he worked at General Magic and endured a decade of trials and tribulations working at the struggling startup. As Fadell once said in an interview, “I literally had a decade of failure.” Fadell would later go on to invent the iPod, be co-creator of the iPhone, and create the Nest thermostat. It is quite possible the greatest value General Magic shipped was Tony himself.

As someone who works in startups and tech, there are multiple definitions of success and failure. For an investor, success might be scaling to a lucrative IPO for huge returns. For a founder, it might also be that, however, it could also be pursuing an uncompromising vision to change the world. The majority of startups die before their vision is even realized and never make it to market. However, some uncompromising visions often explode like a supernova, spreading their cosmic influence for others to continue the work.

Perhaps the greatest failures at fulfilling a grand vision bore spores of inspiration for others to continue the work for countless generations.