North Stars, Visions and Sprints

It is an occupational hazard for designers to reach for speculative design tools far too frequently. Designers like imagining the future, and if you can imagine that future free of too many dependencies or constraints, it is creatively fulfilling.

To compound this desire, when teams are unsure what to build or have no definition of done they will often ask designers to go create a North Star or a vision in the belief that the resulting designs will show the way forward. Rarely does this work.

There are several factors that I have found are important to consider if you are creating these.

• Timescale - How far into the future are your speculative designs? Are you proposing solutions to Three Miracle Problems or are the designs too constrained by what’s buildable now? Finding the right timescale will create a constraint that is clarifying.

• Culture - How accepting is the company culture of artifacts like a vision video? Some companies are too pragmatic to get much value from these things, while others rely on them as key communication tools. Which company are you at?

• Fidelity - Are you making a movie complete with storyline, effects, and actors? Is it a workable prototype built on top of your existing stack? Maybe it’s just some sketches and ideas. Doesn’t really matter, but finding the right fidelity that fits the timescale and culture has a significant influence on its ultimate success.

Speculative designs are, at the end of the day, communication tools. Their impact is directly tied to the depth, breadth, and acceptance of the ideas inside the company. In my experience most of these efforts have a very short half-life and are quickly forgotten, making the ROI very low.