AP UX Week '07: Parallels in Cooking and Design

[Live blogged notes from Adaptive Path UX Week 2007. Parallels in Cooking and Design by Ryan Freitas]

Parallels between cooking and design by Ryan Freitas

UX Week draws people with a wonderful variety of backgrounds. Ryan, for example, used to be a professional cook in a pretty good restaurant in San Francisco.

14 hour days. 8 day weeks. $7.25 per hour.

Kitchens are organized to:

• Maximize consistency of product
• Ensuring freedom to experiment
• Encouraging effective problem solving

The kitchen can inspire us because we want these things too.

Here are some lessons for us.

One: Order and discipline are not the natural enemies of the creative process

Structure is meant to ensure quality and consistency of every attempt the kitchen makes to please its diners.

Two: Keep your eye on the clock

The sky is rarely the limit. We like to think that we can be outside of the box, that we can totally open up to a situation and eliminate constraints. Instead we should come to grips with the reality of constraints.

This avoids the endless consideration of limitless possibilities.

Three: Recognize internal opportunities for creative freedom

Sometimes feeding the staff is the only way to get the reaction you're looking for.

Exercises for the people around you matter just as much as the work you do for clients. When you are putting things out there for your peers there are opportunities to really shine. You have fewer directives and constraints so use this as a chance to experiment.

When constraints are relaxed and the audience is made up of your peers, there is an opportunity to show what you are capable of.

Four: Trust the guy with the knife

The only way that a chef looks good is if the people he or she trains perform.

Even when the chef isn't in the restaurant, execution must be perfect.

The staff must thus be trustworthy.

What do you think it needs?

To gain trust in people ask them what they think their work needs to be better. This lets you gain insight into the way people are solving problems. It gains trust in correct decisions.

At AP they do open design sessions. They completely expose what is going on within a project. A designer puts their work before everyone and everyone discusses it. This exposes the roots of the assumptions and everything being put into creating a solution. Maybe, with 30 people looking at it, you get a better insight.

Expose your design to scrutiny.

Conclusion

So what you can learn from a cook?

Structure, timing, and creative freedom are the backbone of good work. These parallels with cooking are true with many industries. We should look to other ways of doing things for solutions.

Q: How do you manage scrutiny?

A: Trust is what matters here. There is a negotiation that depends on common language and empathy. The ultimate success of the group depends on getting this right. That is a big emotional topic but it comes down to giving feedback when and where appropriate. There is a fine line that needs to walked to gain this trust but it can be very valuable for the organization.