The process: Break... break... break it down
Having been through multiple paradigm shifts over my career in multiple industries, I have been recently analyzing to find the common pattern or process that is involved when innovating in these spaces in preparation for my talk at the Augmented Enterprise Summit. It can be tricky to recognize that the process itself is relatively the same even though the current shift feels like the most complex change that has ever occurred (Plot twist: it ALWAYS feels like the most complex change that has ever occurred!). The current shift I am focusing on is XR so I will use that as a reference.
Figure out the state of things
The first step in any paradigm shift is first to research and get a base understanding of what the shift is all about and most importantly, where the shift is currently at. If you can gain some insights into parts of the shift that have been already discarded and why they were discarded, even better. This type of information is key to helping you breakdown and understand the complexity. But how do we breakdown the complexity?
Breakdown complexity with questions
In any project you might have a set of questions that are gone through. The process of answering these questions might not even be a conscious effort, but they are there in the background guiding your path.
Should we do this?
Are we solving a problem for our user?
Is this compelling?
Will this cause joy in our intended audience?
Does this make sense?
It makes sense to us, but we are building it. Will our users understand this?
What color should the icon be?
Cornflower blue? (Bonus points for knowing this reference)
Is there an ROI on this?
Can we scale this idea?
WIth any large shift, there are new questions we need to ask. These questions might not have answers, but they need to be understood as being important unknowns. Once you have your basic research and understanding, sit and work through questions you still have. Some questions that XR adds to the mix are…
How do we train our users to use this?
Remember, no context for this sort of thing
What happens when the users moves?
How does your experience change based on viewing position?
Do I care about occlusion?
What is occlusion?
Do I respect physics and gravity?
Laws? More like guidelines.
What CAN I do with this infinite canvas?
What SHOULD I do with this infinite canvas?
Your use of a given shift might have very specific questions that you need to answer. Remember, the goal at this stage isn’t the answer, it is to breakdown the big complexity into smaller bits that are easier to work through and understand one at a time. You are building your context for the shift.
There is a potential trap in this exercise. I fall into this trap myself a lot and have to work to extricate myself from it. The trap is thinking about your questions only in the frame of an idea you have on what to do with the shift. How do you tell this is happening? Your questions are VERY specific to your idea, not the shift in general. A good method to keep your focus on the general is to have a second list that you will get to later. Any questions that are hyper-specific to your potential idea goes on this second list.
Remember this phase is all about getting your footing in the understanding of the shift. Up next, we will get our hands dirty and really accelerate our learning.
Enjoy the process.
Trust the process.
