Traditional UX approaches are based on problem finding and solving. The focus on dysfunctions contributes to sapped morale, political games and decision paralysis in multidisciplinary teams. Positive design is an alternative strength-based method which promotes positive change and innovation through human-centric cooperation and collaboration across organisational boundaries. 10-Minutes talk presented at the UX Australia 2012 Conference, on Friday 31 August 2012.

1. POSITIVE
DESIGN
RENATO FEIJÓ
@rfeijo

2. FINDING
PROBLEM
SOLVING
The traditional approach to consulting is quite simple: Go out looking for issues and
formulate ways to solve them. Design is a type of consulting - regardless of whether you
work internally or externally to an organisation - and designers pride themselves on their
ability to find and solve problems.

3. DISCOURSE
ACTION <>
Discourse and action often go hand-in-hand, and language shapes the nature of
interpersonal relationships. It is particularly interesting to look at the language employed by
some of the UX industry’s most prominent commentators in their articles and books:

4. FLASH IS 99% BAD
HOW YOUR WEBSITE’S CRAPPY USABILITY
IS COSTING YOU SALES
TOP 10 REASONS THE NEW
GOOGLE NEWS SUCKS
A friend of mine calls them the “UX Grouches”. And they seem to have a large following in the
industry. Looking at my Twitter timeline, this is what I often hear my UX colleagues say:

5. FLAWED STINKY
CRAP SUCKS
DOUCHEY
#FAIL
STUPID
BAD DUMB
USELESS BROKEN
The focus on problems is arguably an artefact from the industrial era, serving the logic of
ever improving productivity and efficiency. Strong rhetoric, basically telling people that their
baby is ugly, is used to get a message across, and serves the logic of obtaining control (or
power struggle).
It’s often forgotten that behind issues, problems and dysfunctions, there is smart, hard-
working and well-intentioned PEOPLE. No matter how detachedly the data is looked at or how
politely pitfalls are explained, people’s emotions are still going to be impacted. Studies
suggest that the constant focus on dysfunctions results in sapped morale, disengagement
and defensive collaboration, ultimately detracting from the original goal of improving things.
In other words, detecting deficiencies might help improve the “what is”, but combined with
negative language it hardly helps to creating the emotionally-safe environment conducive to
the unbridled generative thinking necessary to fully elaborate the “what could be”.

6. SKILLS
TIME & RESOURCES
PROCESSES
CULTURE
In effect, if you scratch the surface, all UX problems boil down to one or any combination of
these aspects: Skills, Time & Resources, Processes, and Organisational Culture. In order to
achieve meaningful, durable and sustainable user experience practices, designers need to
engage in promoting positive organisational change along these axes.
But what do our discourse and actions say about our own culture?
Which brings up the next point: Frames of Reference.

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PROBLEM ANALYSIS ALTERNATIVES
SET
Successful UX design can only happen through cross-boundary, multidisciplinary
collaboration.
Many professionals - and managers - are trained to think analytically. To put simply (and
probably simplistically, my apologies), analytical thinking involves looking at a given problem
set through a number of lenses to figure out a number of pre-determined alternatives. This is
good in certain circumstances because it allows for quick decision-making based on a
repeatable, predictable and reliable process. Thus, a manager’s set of lenses might include
tools like economic analysis, risk assessment, time value of money, etc. Even Western doctors
are trained to think this way. Psychiatrists, for instance, refer to a manual of mental disorders
- DSM IV - to infer, from a given diagnostic, the appropriate treatments and drugs.
When analytical thinking is applied to design, the designer’s lenses might include stuff like
design principles, heuristics, guidelines, standards, etc; and the alternatives might resolve to
things like design patterns. While this may make managers and other team members happy
by minimising the uncertainties of the often chaotic design process, and providing
consistent, repeatable and predictable outcomes, the downside is that it also invariably
results in formulaic and mediocre designs.
Designers, in fact, are trained to think synthetically (as opposed to analytically) to generate
NEW alternatives (as opposed to pre-cooked ones), which is the whole point behind Design
Thinking.

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In the context of multidisciplinary team work, we have people with different frames of
reference formulating varied - and sometimes conflicting - alternatives from the same
problem set.
In politically-charged organisations, this typically leads to decision paralysis. In the context
of a power struggle, the top dog wins. And this is ultimately the reason why insightful
recommendations and thoughtful designs are not implemented.

9. POSITIVE
DESIGN
Positive design offers a dialectic alternative to the traditional approach to design as it is “less
focused on the detection of errors associated with gaining control and more concerned with
human-centred design associated with the shaping of thriving organisations and a hopeful
future.” (1)
(1) Design with a Positive Lens: An Affirmative Approach to Designing Information and
Organizations by: M.
Avital, K. Lyytinen, R. J. Boland, B. Butler, D. Dougherty, M. Fineout, W. Jansen, N. Levina, W.
Rifkin and J.
Venable

10. POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
STRENGTH-BASED
AFFIRMATIVE INQUIRY
Positive Design builds on the work by Martin Seligman and Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, who, in
the 80’s and 90’s devised a new branch in psychology called Positive Psychology. They started
with an observation: All the psychology research at that time was centred on mental
disorders; and a question: What are the mental, physical and spiritual processes that make
people happy? Positive psychologists are therefore concerned with four points: positive
experiences, enduring psychological traits, positive relationships, and positive institutions.
From Positive psychology, a number of strength-based approaches were devised, such as
strength-based parenting, strength-based leadership, strength-based management, and even
Positive Economics!
More recently, a strength-based approach to Change Management was developed, called
Affirmative Inquiry. I invite all designers endeavouring to promote positive change to look at
the above topics.
I’d like to stress two key characteristics of Positive Design:

11. POSITIVE
First, is that it is, well, positive. :-)

12. 70% 30%
Imagine that, in the context of a user-centred design process, research was conducted and a
number of issues were revealed. The exact nature of the issues is not important for the
purposes of this explanation. It could be something like - to use current UX language - “70%
of the website’s content is CRAP”, or “70% of the users dropped out of the STUPID checkout
process”.
Though success and failure are sometimes related, looking at one doesn’t tell us much about
the other. So, what made the other 30% of the content good, or 30% of the users succeed?
The truth is that in every organisation - large or small - there’s always a small group of
people, or a full product team, or even an entire division doing things right. From the users’
perspective, what about them could help others to succeed?

13. 70% 30%
SKILLS
TIME & RESOURCES
PROCESSES
CULTURE
Positive Design will still make good use of insights stemming from problem finding, but will
focus on spreading success stories across the board.

14. PARTICIPATORY
The second key characteristic of Positive Design is that it is participatory.

15. WE VS.
THEM
The participatory approach in Positive Design extends the scope of participation beyond
users (typically the case in participatory design and co-design approaches) to embrace the
entire stakeholder community (team-members, managers, directors, partners, providers, etc)
in the process.
Positive Design creates a safe space and environment where people can come together, have
dialogues, and engage in storytelling so they can make sense of the world, resolve conflicts,
and form agreements.

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So, to sum up, remember the diagram representing the disconnect between people from
different frames of reference and endeavours?
Positive Design turns the thing on its head:

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The problems are no longer at the centre of the stage.
Positive Design focuses on bringing the stakeholders together to jointly engage in idea
sharing, identification of a common ground, and reaching consensus. Its participatory nature
enables people to identify with the common purpose and engage in joint identity building. A
generative design process is made possible through a common frame of reference and a
shared vocabulary.

18. TRADITIONAL POSITIVE
ANALYTIC SYNTHETIC
JUDGMENTAL APPRECIATIVE
DEFICIENCY-SEEKING VALUE-SEEKING
CONCLUSION-SEEKING OPEN-ENDED
GOAL-DRIVEN PURPOSE-DRIVEN
PREVENT VICIOUS CYCLES PROMOTE VIRTUOUS CYCLES
And to wrap up, here’s a short comparison table between the traditional approach and
Positive Design. Positive Design is not the panacea, and it’s probably unsuited for some
settings (command-and-control types of organisations come to mind), but looking at things
from a positive lens whenever possible will undoubtedly promote more meaningful, fulfilling,
empowering and humane work experiences for everyone involved, and arguably better
designs, if you accept the notion that design is not finite, but rather an open-ended, ongoing
process.
Spread the love!

19. THANK
YOU
RENATO FEIJÓ
@rfeijo
www.blackbean.com.au