The idea of Making and Learning vs Learning and Making

I was at an event this Thursday, and an idea struck me. I think the people who make first and then learn have a greater chance of innovating and making cool products than the people who spend a lot of time learning, and then making.

Don't get me wrong, I still value the desk research and user interviews in the process of making something and they remain important parts of the design process. But here's an example. How would you design a UI for a mythical ambient computer that doesn't exist yet. Let's say it's got a projected display. It sits on a desk and it works as a study companion. Design Thinking handbooks will tell you to follow the double diamond process before you put pen to paper, you must do the user research, you must conduct interviews, you must follow the heuristics, you must do X, Y and Z.

Here's the catch. None of this exists for the said platform yet. Now what? Well you make something and then test if it's working. You gotta start from Making and not learning when doing something radically new. You have to be humble enough to make big changes if it's not working. But it's important to follow your instincts, and put your idea to paper, even a sketch to me is an act of making. And then you must show it to the people who will use it, learn from them, adapt to their needs. And that's how you build out something new. Double Diamond fails here.

The biggest problem with the Double Diamond is the lack of trust in a designer's instincts and knowledge. Ideas aren't isolated, they form from a variety of experiences, it's important to acknowledge those experiences to truly understand a problem and possible solutions. Pretending we know nothing about something doesn't help. Starting with a sketch, a paper prototype, an idea of how the solution looks like doesn't hurt anyone. Show it to people you're designing for, then dive deeper into the problem.

Having something to begin with is so much more effective for learning than just mindlessly meandering in different directions. The risk with such meanderings is a) Spending too much time researching and too little making. That leaves less room for iterative learning, and b) conforming to our own biasis.

Just my two very rough cents. Make first, and then learn. But learn for sure.