I’m a perfectionist, and I bet you are, too.
by Sarah B.In my experience, many of us in the design profession have perfectionist tendencies. We are often idealistic with high standards for ourselves, our work, and others. There is nothing wrong with striving towards excellence as long as it doesn’t paralyze you. Which, of course, is the fundamental problem with perfectionism — we become so hung up with creating the perfect thing that we plan it, we think about it, but we never do it.
One way to deal with perfectionism is to focus more on the quantity of output rather than quality. If you make a lot, you are more likely to develop something of higher quality. In my photographic work, I certainly know that shooting in quantity yields a richer library from which to build my body of work. The more I shoot, the more I see, the more I understand about my work, the better I get. Successful writers also have similar habits. Write regularly, write a lot, write first, edit later.
I would argue that some design and development processes tend to institutionalize perfectionism and ultimately result in lower quality products. With tight timelines and budgets, it can seem like you have only one chance to get it right. Waterfall models, common in the enterprise or outsourcing, often require that designers deliver complete “perfect” designs to be perfectly executed. Organizational pressures to mitigate risk means teams spend a lot of time planning and validating work which can make it difficult to really explore problems creatively.
A question for you: What tools have you used to combat perfectionism either in yourself or within your organization?
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January 31st, 2007 at 7:59 pm
I’ve got a saying you may have heard, “perfect is the enemy of the good.” And it’s true. If you realize that you’ll almost never be perfect (I think true perfection requires some serious luck) and you strive to do your best without hindering yourself by hanging an expectation of perfect over your head, you begin to realize that maybe perfect isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Having said that, I struggle with this as well. In myself and in those around me. I’m not a perfectionist, but I do have very high, sometimes unrealistic expectations.
Many perfectionists I’ve seen over the years end up consistantly getting very little accomplished, always trying to make it better or unwilling to let go control. Those that do are extraordinary talents or REALLY lucky. ;0)
When it comes to design, an iterative design process is probably a good way around perfectionism. You’re almost forced to explore problems creativly and there is no expectation to nail it early on. In fact, that’s almost against the whole idea. Also, simply enabling yourself and those around you to fail (and hopefully learn from it) would be a start. Easier said than done though, I’m sure.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:05 am
Perfectionism has always made me painfully aware of deadlines, more so than I would like. It ultimately, as you said, detracts from the quality of the work as well. I’ve found it virtually impossible to shake this personality flaw; it sneaks up on me unawares :).
I’ve found, however, that if I prohibit myself from writing a single line of code until I have a truly honest understanding of the objectives and a feel for the texture of my design (along with detailed hand written drafts), it dramatically improves my chances for “comfortable success”. If I run into “trouble” (where drafts don’t translate nicely to screen), I will force myself (it is truly difficult)
to lift my fingers from the keys and redraft. I don’t think that I’ve worked harder on fixing anything about myself as I have this.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Having just completed the design phase of my start-up, I can share my recent experiences. The design process has taken longer than I planned, but I willingly let this happen. So many functionality and business issues have come out of the design process, and the process of iteratively resolving these issues via the design has given me a surer sense of how my site will hang together, and what is important for the user. I do not believe my designs are perfect, in fact, I am very aware of their limitations and insufficiencies. But I am in a lucky enough position to have a very small company and have a very flexible development team, and I know I can address these issues later. My goal with the design phase was to create screens that were intuitive, that led the customer through the site in an engaging manner, and that worked with the other screens in the site. I didn’t want to be bogged down in perfection just yet, time for that later. I am now onto the build phase, and we are still refining the designs, but the bulk and the essence of the designs I am happy with.
Its an interesting debate… I am generally a horrific perfectionist. I guess the best tool to combat this is to surround yourself with flexible, reasonable people. I’ll ask my developer to do something that wasn’t planned, and if its reasonable, he’ll do it, else he’ll push back, we’ll discuss amiably, and reach a good conclusion. Its formal specifications and tyrannical business behaviour that make perfectionism necessary at times.