If good design requires failure, how can designers f*ck up when failure isn’t considered an option? Edison famously said, "I failed my way to success." In the interactive world, we've all heard the buzz phrases about failing fast, and how failure--particularly in the form of prototyping--can be a powerful design tool. But what about real failure? We've all experienced projects that never got off the ground, or crashed and burned stunningly. We don't put them in our portfolios. We only talk about them when we've had one drink too many. What can we learn from our embarrassments? And are there really things we can learn by failing, especially in the agency and consulting worlds, where we are hired for our expertise, and infallibility? Questions to think about: Can there be actual power, and knowledge in failure? What is your biggest failure, and what did you learn from it? What are the different ways you can fail? Have you ever had a "successful" project that was a personal failure? Why? What can you learn from it? Why are we so afraid of failing? What are the negative consequences of failure? And how can we encourage a positive viewpoint on failure? How can we pull victory from the flames of defeat? How do you not panic when you sense yourself failing? How can you use your failure to inform future successes? How can we build an acceptance of failure into a design or consulting practice? How can we get away from always having to be right, and move towards creative adaptability?

1. TOWARDS A F*CK UP M@N1F3STØ
How do we incorporate f*cking up into
the user experience design process?

2. Grawlix
!
Typographical symbols
standing for profanities,
appearing in dialogue
balloons in place of actual
dialogue. Invented by
American cartoonist Mort
Walker.!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mort_Walker!

3. The Romance of Failure

4. Ben Huh
One Reality of Failure
Setup: Huh was a 22-year-old journalism major when he moved to
Chicago and founded software analytics firm Raydium in January
2000... he cobbled together $750,000 over two rounds.
"Uh-oh" moment: Eighteen months later, he hit a wall. "You're hopeful
to the end, but we were flat out of money and couldn't meet payroll,"
he says... For two weeks, he says, he could barely leave his room.
The way out: Six years passed before Huh decided to buy I Can Haz
Cheezburger and begin building his funny-blog empire... "You know
how painful it can be, but you do it anyway," he says. "I think you are
better prepared, mentally and financially, but you never know if it's
going to be successful. That's called maturity.”
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225204#hipswap
But ultimately, he succeeded...

5. Another Reality of Failure

6. SO"
in our world...

7. Failure is Fine
For entrepreneurs & startups
When it’s a means to an ends
When overcoming an obstacle adds to a success story
When the risk of failure is assumed & accepted by the $
people
! When the creator has longevity, endurance, and sticks
with the project
! When you learn from it
!
!
!
!

8. Failure Sucks
!
!
!
!
!
!
For consultants & agencies
When it’s the final word
When you can’t see see past the obstacle
When asses need to be covered
When the designer doesn’t or can’t stick it out
When you can’t learn from it

9. BUT"
in the world of creativity & art...

10. FAILURE ROCKS!

11. Failure Is The Heart of Creativity
Failure is awesome/acceptable when we call it:
• Play
• Experimentation
• Fun
When it fuels us
When we don’t fear it, or fear it, but don’t shy away from it
When it leads us to do something no one’s ever done before
When we learn from it

12. I RISK FAILURE"
ALL THE TIME

13. I Risk Failure
When I play music:
• Will I keep time, hit the right notes, play “right”?
When I get on stage or in front of a camera:
• Will they laugh at me? Or not laugh with me?
When I write:
• Will anyone read it? Do I have anything to say?
When I run workshops:
• Will any of you really care about any of this?

14. BUT

15. Because I Risk Failure I Gain Experience
I learn new things & have new experiences
I find new joys
I meet new people
I do things I’ve never done before
I make movies, play music, act, write, run workshops
I lose fear
I take more risks—even risk the next failure
And, consequentially, I get better at creating

16. SO

17. WHY IS IT SO
HARD FOR"
ME TO FAIL AT

18. Hard, Yes, But I Can Do It!
Just not always in constructive/creative ways...
• I fail because I’m afraid to take risks
• I fail because I “show off” through over design
• I fail because I take feedback as an indictment
In short, I fail because I’m afraid

19. How Are You Afraid to Fail?
Me?
• I’m afraid to be wrong
• I’m afraid to lose control
How about you?
•
•
•

20. F*CK UPS ANONYMOUS
Let’s change our relationship to
failure—make failure an
accepted part of our process.
Let’s share our F*CK UPS.

21. H i, I ’ m Ja s o n,
a nd I ’m a fa ilu
re
.
This is where you say:
Hi Jason.

22. ESPN’s DIGITAL CONVERSION PROJECT
Can we cut through the
pleasantries, so I can tear
this piece of SH*T apart?
My client at ESPN talking about a first draft wireframe deck.

23. I Actually Learned A TON From That Feedback
• I listened to his criticisms with an open mind
• I realized I was over designing because I was so excited
about my first time designing for touch screens
• I went back to thinking about my users, and most
importantly their environments
• I simplified, simplified, simplified
And helped create the interfaces that drive one of the
biggest HD digital broadcast studios in the world.

24. F*CK UPS ANONYMOUS
So... What’s your most
embarrassing work failure?
And how did you handle it?

25. F*CK UPS ANOMYMOUS RULES REGS
•
•
•
•
Publically share our failures
Listen without judgment for similarities, and outliers
No “should haves” “could haves” or “would haves”
Capture on Post-Its
–
–
–
–
Themes
Questions
Feelings
Observations

26. STICKIE BREAK!

27. WANNA HELP ME
WRITE THE
MANIFESTO?

28. WHY I THINK FAILURE MATTERS IN UX DESIGN
• Our clients want something new, innovative, different,
fun, fresh, exciting
• Our clients want something successful
• Our clients want something they can be proud of
Not taking risks, doing boring evolutionary
design, and simply applying best practices
doesn’t do any of this

29. WHY I THINK FAILURE IS HARD IN UX DESIGN
Our clients want to cover their asses
Our clients want something proven
Our clients want something they can measure
Our clients don’t want to pay for process—failure costs more
by the hour.
• Our clients can be “risk averse”
•
•
•
•
And risk aversion is the antithesis of F*CKING
UP

30. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Is having space to F*CK UP important in the design
process? Why? Why not?
•
•
•

31. MY INITIAL
THOUGHTS ON
THE MANIFESTO

32. LET’S FORMALLY ADD FAILURE TO THE PROCESS
1.
2.
3.
4.
Show why F*CKING UP is important to our clients
Get our clients to commit to be our fail buddies
Formalize some rules for F*CKING UP
Incorporate testing and validation into the process to
learn from our F*CK UPS
Then show how F*CKING UP can lead to
the creation of amazing things

33. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
What would you add to this? What would you take out?
•
•
•

34. SHOW WHY
F*CKING UP
IS IMPORTANT
1

35. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
DANGER DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
THE SAFE ZONE
I WENT TO THE DANGER ZONE!
Idea
THE FINISH LINE
Idea

36. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
DANGER DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
THE SAFE ZONE
I WENT TO THE DANGER ZONE!
Idea
THE FINISH LINE
Idea

37. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Design
Iteration
THE SAFE ZONE
YAWN
THE FINISH LINE
Idea

38. AND HERE’S WHY
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Design
DANGER DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
Idea
Iteration
COOL!
THE SAFE ZONE
Idea
Idea
Iteration
COOL!
Idea
Iteration
Idea
Design
Idea
Idea
Iteration
FAIL
Idea
I WENT TO THE DANGER ZONE!
Iteration
Idea
THE FINISH LINE
Iteration
Idea

39. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Does this diagram do the trick? (Probably not.) What
would? How can we “sell in” F*CKING UP?
•
•
•

40. GET OUR
CLIENTS TO
FAIL WITH US
2

41. WILL YOU BE MY FUDDY? (F*CK-UP-BUDDY)
1. Can we get our clients to share their fears with us? Can we
share our fears with them? Is sharing caring fer realz?
2. How about including them in our brainstorming sessions?
(yeah, I know, brainstorming is broken, let’s get to that too)
3. How about lifting the hood, and showing them more of our
messy process? Would that help?
4. Can we get them sketching? White boarding? Stickies-ing?
Can we get our clients to have fun with us?

43. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
How do we get our clients to partner with us? Even when
it’s FUGLY? How can we start F*CKING UP, and stop
blamestorming?
•
•
•

44. FORMALIZE
F*CKING UP
3

45. THE FIRST RULE OF F*CK UP CLUB IS...
1. Set the stage with a GOOFY DANCE (or Twister, or Charades, or
whatever you can think of to get the seriousness out of the
room)
2. Try a puppet show– come up with a different way to express
the problem, or idea.
3. Replace brainstorming meetings with a “worst idea you can
think of” meeting
4. Sketch, sketch, sketch, for at least ½ the design process (At
least ¼??)
Can’t we all have some fun with this?

47. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
How can we formally add F*CKING UP into our process?
What activities can we include? What do we have to watch
out for?
•
•
•

48. LEARN FROM
F*CKING UP
4

49. THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST...
1. Let’s incorporate user testing at all levels of the process
2. Let’s share our early ideas—even the craziest ones
3. Let’s listen to our user rep’s feedback, discounting most of
what they say of course, and really focus on their reactions
—are they excited, giddy, leery?
4. Let’s keep pursuing at least one really oddball idea for most
of the design process, test it, and determine what out of it
can be included in our final design
Don’t take it personally. This is about F*CKING
UP, isn’t it?

50. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
How can we learn from our F*CK UPS? How can our worst
ideas to inform our best ones? How do we test this stuff?
•
•
•

51. 5
F*CK UP
AMAZING

53. FCKUP
design