How to overcome blank page syndrome, a luxury designers can’t afford
How to find the right design without using Generative AI
Designers must learn to combat blank page syndrome nowadays because you have an unfair competitor: Generative AI.
Blank page syndrome, where creatives stare blankly at a page, trying to find the perfect idea (or dealing with impostor syndrome), is quickly becoming a luxury designers can’t afford.
While the idea is probably shelved, unfair comparisons will come through. But while Generative AI is useful to combat this, another idea can help you combat a blank page.
It starts by realizing design is not art.
Design is not art, even now more than ever
“Design is not art, design has to function.”-Isaac Jeffries
There’s a specific community of designers who often consider themselves artists. Some have a background in graphic design, while others create visually exciting and artistic work.
It’s been a timeless debate whether design is art, but it’s become increasingly apparent that it isn’t due to AI. Artists suffer in multiple ways due to AI, but designers don’t have to.
Why? The design has a different purpose. Businesses don’t want useless art pieces on their home page. They want to change user behavior through design.
We’re not discussing using deceptive patterns to trick users into buying things. Instead, our designs are often measured through user behavior change.
I like Dan Winer’s, Director of Product Design at Kit, take on it:
1. Design for an emotional response
2. Expect a behavioral response
3. Track the change in behavior
4. Understand the metric your work impacts
5. Comprehend where it fits into the business context
If we’re re-designing a poor user experience, the business sees undesirable user behavior (like abandoning the website), which they hope to change with our designs.
Designing something new? We’re trying to get a target user group to interact with our Product or application by offering them enough value to behave differently (i.e., click “Sign Up for an account.”)
Focusing more on changing user behavior and solving a problem helps design to narrow down our options.
If I told you, “Design a landing page for our product,” that might be a one-way trip to blank page syndrome. You might feel like there are millions of potential possibilities to consider.
However, what about the statement, “I want you to design a homepage whose primary purpose is to get users to create an account”? That statement narrows down options because it has a specific action and focus.
You might be thinking, though, that doesn’t sound like a Design statement. You’re right: it isn’t. That’s a Product statement about what they want from designers.
Objectives, key results, and what Product wants from designers
Business objectives are critical, but they’re often impractical for daily work.
Imagine the business wanted to achieve $250,000 in cash by the end of the year. While that may be a good goal, you can, unfortunately, achieve it in many ways. You could:
Bring in more customers
Sell your office space
Fire $250,000 worth of salaried employees
etc.
As a result, product teams often define key results along with Objectives. These are specific, measurable outcomes that show progress toward your objective.
These key results can, in turn, help us understand the behavior change we’re seeking to implement as designers.
For example, if a “Key result” for our objective of $250,000 is “get 20% more paid subscriptions,” then we, as designers, must design a user experience that encourages more people to sign up for a paid subscription.
That doesn’t mean we trick them into paying (hopefully). What that means is:
Identifying user motivations for purchasing a subscription
Finding pain points or problems in the current experience that might prevent people from purchasing a subscription
Designing something that reduces friction toward purchasing a subscription
Showcase the benefits and value of a paid subscription
etc.
In other words, we must follow our design process and create designs that have a strong likelihood of making progress toward our goal. The only thing we need to consider is this:
“Will this design solution get us to where we want to be, in terms of Key Results?”
A wild and beautiful design unlikely to result in more users subscribing can be safely eliminated, transforming the frustration of millions of design possibilities into a dozen or so.
A simple prompt can often solve blank canvas syndrome
Studies have shown that adding a single prompt to a blank canvas can jumpstart creativity.
Constraints lead to creativity, especially when we’re not creating art pieces.
That doesn’t mean we can’t create beautiful designs. Visual design is often a core skill that designers showcase in their portfolios. Instead, we must remember that behind every design request is a measurable behavior change.
So, ask your Product team and write out that prompt. When you do that and consider your overall objective, you might not have a million possibilities dancing in your head.
You might find that you know the best design solution for the job, giving you the best starting point you can achieve.
Kai Wong is a Senior Product Designer and Creator of the Data and Design newsletter. His course, Data-Informed Design, shows you how to work more effectively and complete design projects faster without sacrificing quality.