90 Mobiles in 90 Days:
A Celebration of Ideas for
Mobile User Experience
Rachel Hinman
Adaptive Path | hinman@adaptivepath.com
Who hasn’t felt the post-project
blues? The emotional journey of
any creative assignment is eerily
similar: The initial thrill of
beginning a new and interesting
project, the excitement of digging into the process and subject
matter and inevitably becoming consumed by the design
problem, and then losing your
sanity in the pursuit of excellence. Toward the end you feel
the fatigue and disillusionment
of the final death march, the
joy of the finish, and ultimately
the hollow sense of emotional
loss once it’s all over. Regardless
of your role—consultant or in-house creative—I’m convinced
any designer worth their salt
has been through this emotional
cycle countless times.
Sketches by Rachel Hinman
I was suffering through a bout
of the post-project blues after
rolling off an exciting eight-month mobile design project
that focused on envisioning the
future of mobile interfaces. The
project was thrilling—by far
the most interesting work I’ve
done. But it came at a cost. I lost
myself in the project; it consumed my thoughts and held me
hostage for months. Once it was
over, I felt an enormous amount
of sadness and loss.
A good friend shared with me
his belief that all good designers
are obsessed and addicted to the
thrill of the mental and creative
engagement. He claimed that
obsessive behavior is the hallmark of a real designer.
I wondered if that was true.
I wondered if all designers are
just junkies for the thrill of
creativity? Is the feeling of loss
at the end of a project the price
we pay for the thrill of being
mentally and emotionally connected to our work? Can we
find a cure with a more disciplined approach while striving
to achieve some semblance of
work/life balance? Or are we
doomed to this emotional cycle
of obsession and loss?
I discussed my dilemma
with some friends who were in
recovery from alcohol addiction. They shared feelings—at
first consumed and obsessed,
followed by a feeling of loss—
that were eerily similar to my
experience as a designer. During
the early stages of alcohol recovery, attendance of 90 Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings in 90 days
to begin dealing with addiction
is recommended. The theory is
that through the daily ritual of
AA meetings, alcoholics learn
to understand their relationship
to alcohol and can then develop
the skills necessary to cope and
deal with their addiction. My
friends suggested I “dry out”
with a creative “90 Mobiles in 90
Days” endeavor to recover from
my project addiction.
So began my creative recovery. Starting last year on June
20, I began to think about,
sketch, draw, and prototype
ideas about mobile design and
user experience. I posted the
ideas to a blog each and every
day. Like folks recovering from
any addiction, I didn’t know
what I would find at the end of
those 90 days, but I had faith
that something good was on the
other side… and there was. Here
is what I learned.
Creative Outlets
Addiction is the state of being
enslaved to a habit or practice, so much so that cessation
causes severe trauma. There’s a
razor-thin line between addiction and passion, and I started
this project questioning if I
had crossed that line. My biggest fear was being identified
as a workaholic: a person with
no sense of self outside of my
vocation, because I lacked the
discipline to enforce boundaries
between my personal and professional selves. I thought I just
might be addicted to my work.
Instead, I discovered through
this journey that I am just pas-
