Avoiding Design Traps: The Category Trap
We've all done it, thought up a really awesome idea and then searched relentlessly to find a problem that we can solve with our solution. This is the category trap. These articles are based on the "design traps" that Bryan Lawson outlines in his book "How Designers Think." Lawson's book is primarily written from the perspective of and architect, but I've found many parallels and wanted to expand his ideas and discuss examples and point out how they directly relate to designers working with the medium of the Internet.
Years ago we found ourselves very excited about the concept of (Content Management Systems (CMS). We had a client who was very much in need of an easy way to manage the content of their e-commerce website We came to the conclusion that an important part of the design solution for their website would be to implement a well-designed and capable content management system that would allow our client to control the content of their website without venturing further into the world of HTML. We achieved our goal and developed an innovative, easy to implement, and feature rich application that we assumed every client would need. For the next couple of years, every client that we lured into the office was presented with the great benefits of our content management system.
We were convinced, even before the client was able to speak a word, that they desperately needed our content management system. At times the implementation and features of the content management system became more important than the basic communication qualities of the website. Hours and hours were spent planning and developing easy-to-use interfaces to allow the client to customize every aspect of their website without having to learn any website programming.
Even though I believe that we excelled brilliantly with our (CMS) implementation, I have often felt that we have sometimes neglected the most important aspects of a client's project because we had pre-destined large portions of our clients' budgets to the implementation of the CMS system, or some other pre-destined solution rather than finding the "core" issue that the client needed us to solve.
Don't assume you know the answer
The CMS example is just one of many that I could have chosen. We often assume that every client needs a comprehensive branding strategy and design style guide, every client needs a home page with a flash introduction, every client needs a database connected website. It becomes very difficult to see past the category trap when a solution has been so successful for another client. It's easy to become convinced that new clients and new problems need that same solution. It's also hard to avoid the trap when you know that once you've done it for one client, it will be easier and probably more profitable to implement the same solution for another client.
Fighting the urge to pre-maturely categorize the solution is very difficult to do. You must be willing to accept the fact that even though previous solutions may have been extremely successful, every new problem will have unique factors that will require new solutions (or at least a new perspective or variation of an old solution).
Avoiding the category trap:
- Wait until you've thoroughly reviewed the problem before making any assumptions about the solution.
- Don't present solutions to clients until you've had the chance to thoroughly evaluate their situation and problems. Educate your clients on the need to understand fully their situation (clients can pull you into the trap as well.)
- Scrutinize your first solution heavily. Don't be afraid to defend it, but make sure that you are making decisions based on your research, and not just rationalizing the fact that you are stuck in the Category Trap.
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