If you asked me to design a traffic light I wouldn’t take the job unless I had years to get up to speed. I drive, I use traffic lights every day, but I don’t have a deep understanding of how they work or their context. Thus, I am ill equipped to design a traffic light well.

The dynamics of traffic flow, connectivity with other systems, the ability for law enforcement to override the signals… I don’t have any idea how any of that works, let alone how to improve it. And that’s just the stuff I have a vague awareness of! There are doubtless significant aspects of traffic light design that I don’t even know about. I don’t know what I don’t know, and that’s an incredible obstacle to designing well.

I could attempt to create a working traffic light right now, but it would be full of flaws. Issues would arise the instant I hit the limit of my current knowledge. I would be forced to make assumptions, and every assumption would be another chance to do things horribly wrong. Bad design is often the product of assumptions, and my traffic light would be full of them.

If you want to design something well you need to start with a deep understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve, the goals you’re trying to accomplish, and the context of it all. Without that, you’re just guessing and rolling the dice.

It’s easy to look around and see success everywhere. Other designers, developers, business owners, companies… they’re all doing great! They’re not screwing things up. They’re making incredible things. How can I possibly do that well? How can I avoid failing?

Here’s the thing: The success you see everywhere is deceptive. People curate what they share. Success is celebrated, but failures are rarely made public. What you see from the outside is everything that went well and nothing that didn’t. You’re only getting part of the story.

That incredible logo? That amazing website? That wonderful copy? Not their first attempt. Probably not even their hundredth. That great work is standing on a foundation of failure, one built out of numerous false starts, prototypes that didn’t work, and countless iterations that transformed the raw material of a vague idea into something wonderful.

Many people have the mistaken impression that the path to success looks like this:

1. Start.
2. Succeed.

That’s not how it works. Failure is part of the process. Any successful person, if they’re being candid, will tell you the path looks a lot more like this:

1. Start.
2. Fail & learn.
3. Fail & learn.
4. Fail & learn.
5. Fail & learn.
6. Fail & learn.
7. Fail & learn.
8. Fail & learn.
9. Fail & learn.
10. Succeed.

(Note: Number of steps may vary!)

Each failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. Each one is literally one step closer to success. Many people, when confronted with their first or second major failure, stop and give up. The choice you make when confronted with failure is one of the key differences between people who succeed and those that don’t.

In order to succeed, we need teachers to show us the way forward. Failure is one of the greatest teachers. Some lessons can only be learned through the act of failing. Don’t lament the absence of success, instead revel in the fact that you know a little more than you did before and are now that much closer to success.

Imagine you made a thing, and that thing is blue. Sometimes the person writing the checks will say something like this when you show it to them:

It’s good, but can you make it green? I like green.

They like green. Okay. They’re paying you to design this thing for them, so it’s your job to make it green, right?

Wrong.

In fact, there are two wrongs here.

The first thing that’s wrong has to do with who you’re designing for. Most of the time you are not designing for the person writing the checks. They are paying you, yes, but your design isn’t for them. Your design is for the target audience, and the person writing the checks is usually not a member of the target audience.

The second thing that’s wrong pertains to your job. As a designer, your job is to communicate well, solve problems, and accomplish goals. If you’re good at your job you made the thing blue for a good reason, not an arbitrary one. Does the person writing the checks have an objective reason for wanting it to be green? A good reason that will have a positive impact on the outcome of the project? Or is it just an arbitrary choice defined by their personal preferences?

It’s probably the latter. That means it’s your job, as the designer, to do two things:

1. Say no.
2. Explain why blue is, objectively, the best choice.

Do not be afraid to say no. As a designer it is often your job to say no and explain, politely, why no is the best answer. No is powerful. No can protect the integrity and efficacy of your work. No is critical component of great design.

Remember, design is not about personal preference, what looks nice, or what people who aren’t in the target audience would like to see. Design is about creating something that works, and works well.

If it works better blue, don’t make it green.

When I’m creating something I’ll catch my brain thinking thoughts like, “If try hard enough, I can make everyone love this!” or, “If I did X, Y, and Z no one could possibly dislike this!”

Wrong. Bad brain!

Have you had these thoughts, too? If you catch these sentiments emerging you have to stop and remind yourself why you’re making what you’re making, and more importantly who you’re creating it for. You’re making things for your target audience, not the entire world.

Some people aren’t going to like what you make, and that’s okay. There will always be haters, trolls, and a whole host of other people that have negative thoughts and opinions. If those people are part of your target audience then you need to listen to them. If they’re not part of your target audience you need to actively ignore them. They’re not who you’re making things for, and their input will rarely (if ever) have any kind of positive effect on you or the work you’re doing. You have a responsibility to yourself and to the work you’re doing to actively shut them out.

The more you try to please people outside your target audience the more diluted your work becomes. Would you rather create something that your target audience feels great about, or something that most people feel neutral or okay about? As you try to increase the appeal of your work to encompass more people the more generic and watered-down it gets. On the other hand, the more you focus on specific people, the more you can speak directly to them, forge a deeper connection, and give them the best experience possible.

Design is all about solving problems, but the problems we solve are rarely ours alone. Whenever you’re designing something that will be used by other people it’s important to take their perspective into account. Each person is unique; no two people will experience the same problem in exactly the same way.

Being able to put yourself in the shoes of other people is required to craft great solutions. If you don’t take the time to see things from the perspective of others you’ll end up making assumptions and guesses that will degrade the quality of your work. The more you practice being empathetic, the more you practice being a great designer.