HMW Make A Cavernous Career Jump Feel A Little Less Terrifying?

On tiny experiments, UX principles, and the frameworks completely overstepping to quietly rewire my brain.

I stopped reading self-help style books a good long while ago. It was a deliberate decision. Between running my own business and trying to switch off, I just didn’t want (or need) the extra pressure of my reading space providing even more to-do’s and pressure to optimise my work-flow, making me try to think leaner or giving me the feeling that I needed to reach further, higher, harder, faster. I wanted my reading space to be a place I could relax into so I opted for a strictly fiction/ fantasy diet to feed my need for escapism and it has been working an absolute charm until recently.

An Exception To The Rule

As I am firmly back in the 'learning’ mindset for the foreseeable, I made a few (small) exceptions to my Fiction-Only rule and have purchased a few course related reads to further cement my understanding of some key areas. I am quite partial to having a few books on the go at once (it will depend on my mood and availability to which I pick) so Service Design Doing for example has been dropped in as something to plug away at when I get ta spare moment between redesigning my website, family life, the course and some vein attempts at maintaining a social life within all that.

I might as well have opened the floodgates then though. Shortly after that, I spotted a recommendation from an industry expert we had been introduced to via a Q&A on the course. His talk had been really interesting so during a little LinkedIn search (read: stalk) I came across this post he had shared. The Tiny Experiments title caught my eye and before I knew it, a copy had slipped and fallen into my virtual basket, checked itself out and was making its way to its new home on my bedside table.

Now, I haven’t actually finished the book yet so this isn’t a review article by any stretch (not that you should be taking my literary advice at all even if it was!) but it is a begrudging acceptance that my hard and fast no “Self Help/Do Better/Transform Your Productivity in 10 easy steps” type book ban might not have been the best move.

I am secretly loving it.

It was a few nights ago when I was reading a few pages before bed when I almost jolted upright at the realisation that there were some How Might We questions right on the page, hiding in plain sight! My initial thought was, UX has officially taken over my brain and now I am even seeing things in books when I am trying to switch off. On re-reading though, the chart was looking at how we can flip the narrative on our situations that we are trying to solve (positive or negative). The premise was:

You take your observation (hello, problem statement).Flip it into a opportunity/question to answer (open up your thinking)Then you can hypothesise a solution (ideation time!)

I’m not sure if I was more irritated with myself for seeing it for the UX framework it was, or secretly impressed. Either way the book and the framework were both doing the same thing and it’s a brilliant way to approach any situation when you think about it.

Accidentally HMW’ing my life

For reference a HMW, or ‘How Might We’ is, at its core, a way to reframe a problem into an opportunity. You take the obstacle at hand, flip it into a positively framed question, and set about coming up with some creative solutions for it. It’s less about making the problem disappear and more about changing your angle of attack.For example, my current problem is -How am I going to make this cavernous career jump from the food industry into UX and business strategy?To start looking at a creative solution for this problem, I need to reframe it into an opportunity and then into a series of HMW questions to find a perfectly fitted solution -

• HMW use 15 years of real industry experience as a UX asset?

• HMW map what I already know into something new, so I am growing from where I am rather than starting from scratch?

• HMW make the gap between where I am and where I want to be more exciting that daunting?

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I haven’t bottomed out this one completely yet but I am absolutely working on it - between the book and these HMW’s it has been feeling a little less freaking insurmountable now and a lot more like a challenge I can’t wait to dig into. It got me thinking though…

What other UX principles are hiding in plain site in our daily life?

Honestly, this is what the inside of my brain looks like now. There is no hope for me. Run. Just save yourself… But really, what others are there? Because now I am on that wave length I am seeing problems/opportunities to solve everywhere and this UX filter seems to be permanently switched to “on”.

Iteration over perfection

This one is so interesting to me. In UX there is this mindset that we can continually iterate so “perfection” isn’t the requirement. You create something, test it and improve it, test it again, improve it again and the cycle continues. Don’t wait until its perfect. I think everyone can benefit from this thinking in some degree. What do you think?

Don’t skimp on the User Research

As in, actually ask people what they need. Don’t assume without validating. How often do we do this in real life? I know I make assumptions with my own bias built in on the regular. I wonder what would change if we heard what others really needed… It’s trickier than the first as it’s often underneath the words/solutions people give you but the opportunities here if we took the time are giddying.

Prototype thinking

This is about treating decisions more like experiments than hard commitments. The Tiny Experiments (that tenuous link from the beginning) focuses on this too. Would we act and try more things if they were viewed as experiments over hard and fast commitments instead? I don’t know, but I think we should try.

I wonder, if we all took a minute to sit with these and think about it… what would we see? (If this hits, the nosey person inside me would genuinely be interested in what comes up for you - please leave a comment and let me know)

The Reframe I Didn’t Realise I Needed

I guess I stepped away from the relentless optimisation of self development style books in the first place because it really does feel like you get it from all angles these days - more now so than ever. Be better, Do Better, etc etc. Fiction gave me the permission to just be somewhere else for a while but I’ve realised with my recent reintroductions that I’ve missed the questions I can pose myself.

I think what I actually needed was the right content - not all the content - and to reframe. This viewpoint feels more sustainable. It’s less massive-life-changing-goals-that-will-10x-my-productivity and more let’s-tweak-and-test-as-we-go which in turn feels like overwhelming homework and more about the possibilities that could be achieved, assuming they are relevant to me.

I wouldn’t say I am a full convert, and absolutely not back to that non-fiction, self development non-stop reading train like before ~ but ~ I would say I’m paying attention again. The crossover between what I’ve been learning and how I’m living has already been showing up and actually it turns out there is space for dragons and self-development. Who knew?!

Ooopf that ended up being quite the chunky post, didn’t it. If you made it this far, thank you! Tell me… What UX principles might you have been accidentally applying to your life without realising it?