strong opinions, weakly held
Back then in a conversation with my design manager, she mentioned that there’s a clear pattern between senior and junior designers. Designers who are more senior usually have this trait of strong opinions weakly held. I ask her what does that even mean?
She said, a designer should have strong opinions on the solution that they propose, they should wholeheartedly trust their intuition and gut-feeling on creating design solution. However, they should also be ready to prove themselves wrong. They should use data & insights to test their intuitions.
A designer without strong opinions will create endless design alternatives, because they are not sure which one to choose. Hence the pattern mentioned above, where junior designers would present multiple alternatives, meanwhile senior designers will only present a well-curated one or two options based on their instinct. The gut feeling does comes with experience, takes time to build your senses & thought process.
Here’s a quote about strong opinions, weakly held from Paul Saffo
“Allow your intuition to guide you to a conclusion, no matter how imperfect — this is the ‘strong opinion’ part. Then –and this is the ‘weakly held’ part– prove yourself wrong. Engage in creative doubt. Look for information that doesn’t fit, or indicators that pointing in an entirely different direction. Eventually your intuition will kick in and a new hypothesis will emerge out of the rubble, ready to be ruthlessly torn apart once again. You will be surprised by how quickly the sequence of faulty forecasts will deliver you to a useful result.”