“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
A simple one-liner is easier heard than said
I often hear people say “what’s the elevator pitch,” likely, because I tend to go on, but that pitch doesn’t always come easily. I recently had the opportunity to develop design principles for an assignment in partial completion of the course LRNT524 – Innovation, Design and Learning Environments. After a reading from Unit 3, Design Principles – a guide (Cable, 2015), I was inspired to revisit these principles to make some adjustments. In the guide, Cable (2015) suggests that designers resist giving users too much information at once. It strikes me that this is a general mark of good writing, so why bring it up here, specifically? The point of design principles is to help make complicated decisions simpler. Perhaps, if your principles are not simple and straightforward, you may find the waters only get muddier further on. In order to effectively reduce cognitive load, logically, a principle must be quick to recall and apply. It’s the hard work you do early on to save yourself exponentially more work later.
Writing headlines is writing for readers
In our reading from Unit 2, we learned that students without design backgrounds have been found to focus less on the needs of others and design primarily for themselves, while students who have participated in the d.thinking process show improvement in the ability to ask clarifying questions and design for someone else’s needs (Goldman et al. 2012). In other words, they learn to design with empathy. In addition, we learned that d.thinking students develop the ability to headline ideas. Before developing this skill, designers are “unable to headline when expressing ideas [and] use excessive explanations” (2012). This cognitive skill allows designers to organize their own ideas more efficiently but also helps in communication as writing good headlines, whether for academic literature, e-magazine articles or design principles, helps your reader organize your thoughts by helping them find and remember the key takeaways. In this way, the writer must empathize with the reader. David Ogilvy reputedly said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” How often, in your own research, do you skim through articles only reading the headlines until you find what you are looking for? In light of this, my New Year’s Communication Resolution is to spend more time fine-tuning that elevator pitch and less time expanding my ideas, as much as I enjoy the latter. I’m hopeful that working on this skill will help me in communication with others as well as in my own creative processes.
How much thought do you put into headlining your ideas in your creative process? How about in your writing? Is there a significant difference between headlining you do in your own planning phase as compared with writing you do for others?
References
Goldman, S. et al. (2012). Assessing d.learning: Capturing the journey of becoming a design thinker. In H. Plattner, C. Meinel & L. Leifer (eds). Design thinking research: Understanding innovation. (pp. 13-33). Berlin: Springer.
Cable, S., (June 18, 2015). Design Principles – a guide CXPartners [Blog post]
January 10, 2018 at 11:42 am
Hi Mary!
Isn’t it interesting that the course is allowing us to reflect on things that we use in every area of our life such as communication? I am normally quite concise when I have had a chance to think about my ideas. My problem is that when I initially have an idea, I become excited about it and verbalize things as I think it through. I have learned that this is really great when you are working with a team to develop an idea or solve a problem as others then have the opportunity to input to the idea/solution making it stronger (so in these circumstances, what you have highlighted as a weakness is really a strength!) When it doesn’t work so well is when you are trying to pitch something (as you noted above). In these cases, the strategy I use is that I go away and develop the idea first. When I eliminate ambiguity from the idea, I am able to express it more concisely. That said, I am not very creative with things like titles which works in my work environment (the military) where the expectation is for the title to convey the idea of what you are pitching rather than be exciting or fun. Letting loose a bit more in this area would definitely help me with things like blog posts!
Thank you for sharing your interesting reflections!
Lorri
January 11, 2018 at 11:29 am
I can certainly relate to your way of “thinking out loud.” When I work with people who have similar thinking processes, it is a treat. I think a lot of people are like this and it gets a lot of problem-solving done. I agree this can be a great strength and style in many contexts. Sometimes, even in conversation, it needs to be tempered if it is not balanced. You may be working with someone who doesn’t have the same problem-solving processes, perhaps they just don’t think “out loud,” or have different cultural expectations around speaking. In the context of writing, you don’t have the opportunity for a counter-balance. I think you could add a third section to this post: “Skimming; the reader’s discussion with the author.” In a way, headlining in writing makes up for what your audience can’t do: interject to change the course or ask clarifying questions.
The opportunity I see for my own growth in the reading we have been doing and the challenges we are engaging in is the meta-cognitive skill to recognize a time and place for asking questions. Knowing where you are in the design process, as Goldman points out (2012), is a learning outcome I am looking forward to!
References
Goldman, S. et al. (2012). Assessing d.learning: Capturing the journey of becoming a design thinker. In H. Plattner, C. Meinel & L. Leifer (eds). Design thinking research: Understanding innovation. (pp. 13-33). Berlin: Springer.
January 13, 2018 at 2:20 pm
I think a lot of this can be simplified to learning to look at things from other people’s perspectives. This is a useful skill for many things in life: marketing, gift-giving, designing, etc.. In just about any interaction with other people, considering their perspectives is valuable. In my experience, young people can be especially blind to this. When I was a teenager I read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, which really opened my eyes to thinking about everything in terms of other people’s perspectives.
January 16, 2018 at 11:18 pm
Hi Mary,
About 20 years ago near the beginning of my post-secondary education, I had to take a mandatory English course that was basically essay writing. I remember learning the rudiments of writing the introduction, thesis statement, paragraph construction with connecting sentences and the conclusion. I often think, whenever I groan about having to read dry course materials, or contrarily when I happily read easily-digestible content, how the mandatory English class should forevermore insist on teaching some elegance, word-efficiency, flair, and hooks. I wonder if the importance of this will grow as education must increasingly compete with the all-invasive and omnipotent technology, internet, social media, and other competitors for attention.
January 21, 2018 at 2:18 pm
Such a simple idea, yet so many people overlook the effort of creating a unique title, headline, or masthead copy. I do make the effort to create a proper headline that will attract and educate at the same time. However, we must be brief in our creativity when it come to a title or headline. I think this is also something I will incorporate within the media program I teach in. Student headlines lack in quality and attractiveness. Every part counts.
Thanks Mary.
Darin