Consider how this plays out during
a pitch or a critique, as a skeptical
audience member responds to a new
idea with, “That’s not how it’s done
now; I just don’t understand how that
could work. There’s no way people
would try that.” An experienced
practitioner might say something like,
“It’s a great point—people are used to
an existing process, and this new idea
would need to be introduced into the
market gradually. But I’m confident
that we can work through that concern
with further iterations of the idea;
here are some thoughts we had about
that.” But a design student might
get defensive, or worse, shut down
completely. They don’t necessarily see
an iterative future for the idea—they
think of it as a static, fixed vision. As
students internalize negative critique,
with their tail between their legs,
they often talk themselves into the
impossibility of the success of their
idea. Additionally, students learn to
avoid criticism or feedback about ideas
at this stage in the process. Yet it’s
precisely at this point where criticism
is most effective and can be most
instrumental. Worst of all, in the face
of criticism, students often discount
the entire process that got them to
their solution in the first place.
I’ve found that the way around
this problem is to help students find
personal satisfaction in their process
rather than their idea. Students
connect their personal fulfillment
and sense of worth with the work that
goes into coming up with creative
solutions; they learn to celebrate
the process, and in doing so, they
realize that ideas are free. “Having
an idea” becomes second nature—
just follow the process. Since having
ideas becomes automatic and implied,
design students can spend time
learning iteration and can continue
to work through the idea details in
the face of criticism by integrating (or
selectively ignoring) feedback. The
idea becomes better, more refined,
and more defensible. And as the
idea matures, criticism of the idea
begins to match the fidelity of the
vision. That marriage of feedback and
idea can live in harmony through a
product launch or pilot test. It stops
being an all-or-nothing question, and
the design itself, rather than just the
idea of the design, becomes real.
This is a confidence in process,
rather than a confidence in artifact.
To formalize this in an educational
curriculum requires shifting focus
from the craftsmanship of the things
students make to the richness of the
process they leverage.

Jon Kolko is the founder and director of Austin Center for Design (http://www. ac4d.com/), a progressive educational institution teaching interaction design and social entrepreneurship. His work focuses on bringing the power of design to social enterprises, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and large-scale industry disruption. → [e-mail] DOI: 10.1145/2716280 COP YRIGHT HELD BY AUTHOR INTERAC TIONS. ACM.ORG MARCH–APRIL 2014 INTERACTIONS 23