Article Idea:
When to Let Go of Perfection: A True Story of Learning First and Polishing Later
suggested by Dawn Nidy on 2009/12/29
I’d like to talk about my personal journey of letting go as a designer. I launched a design that I knew wasn’t perfect to get early learnings while we proved if the business was viable. I didn’t do this in the lab. I did this by launching a product and having real people use it with their real data. I’ll talk about why I did it this way, what I learned, and what challenges I faced.
In the next version, I dramatically improved the design after diligently learning from my earlier attempt. It was a big risk to publish a design that I knew wasn’t quite there yet. But I strongly believe I ended up with a better result than I would have otherwise. I also earned the trust and respect of my business partners by not overinvesting in the design process too soon.
I’d like to talk about when I think this approach is appropriate for others to follow and what the merits are of doing it this way.
Want to see this idea turned into a story?
7 people said yes. | 0 people said no.
John Boykin
4 Reputation points
Posted 2010/01/10 @ 17:58PM with
Sounds helpful.
Andrea Wiggins
103 Reputation points
Posted 2010/06/04 @ 12:01PM with
Details about how you worked through this process would be interesting to see – particularly time frames for your project’s iteration cycles and how you responded to user feedback.