The profound power of constraints and how to work with them
After 4 years of design school and a few years working in the technology space, I have come to learn how to exploit the diversity in the kinds of constraints and the inherent power in them. Instead of problem solving on a completely blank slate, constraints help structure our process within the boundaries they inevitably create. A potential solution’s extent of success is determined by a designer’s ability to work within these parameters and creatively go about making the best of them.
During my trip to Italy in 2017, while I fed my inner art-nerd with works of the all-famous Michelangelo, I learnt of the constraints that finally lead to the creation of David, Renaissance’s most famous sculpture. Evidently, the statue was started and then rejected in 1463 by a sculptor named Agostino di Duccio. Michelangelo, therefore had a predefined foundation in marble to work with (which was also 40 years old) and a time limit of 2 years to finish it.
This came with complexities of scale, posture, material and style. Yet, Michelangelo could now work at creating many nuances that were his own entirely upon this foundation. These constraints were also used as a means to reject ideas presented by critics that the sculptor didn’t agree with.
In a comparatively more recent story, Microsoft’s Windows 95 star-up sound was inspired by a constraint; that of time. Musician Brian Eno was asked to create a sound that was futuristic and positive. But, it was the constraint that it must be 3 and ¼ seconds long that finally galvanised him to create what is one of the most recognisable sounds today.
Having presented my case, here are 6 constraints I have experienced as a product designer and why I think they’re so powerful.
- Time
There are several reasons one would experience a constraint with time in the product space. One such limit relates to the fact that the feature launch date must match certain marketing efforts or help optimise sale cycles. Others include solving for blockers that users are currently experiencing in order to provide a better customer experience, competitive advantage and/or a larger business goal. Constraints like these can sometimes mean that designers and engineers need to work quickly and build on assets that currently already exist. They also need to factor in the purpose of the problem into the problem itself. For example, at BookMyShow, when designing the pre-booking experience for movie tickets, we had to align with the release of a large movie that users would in fact pre-book for. Our first pre-booking went out for Dangal, which was to officially open bookings a week after we decided to create this feature. We had 3 days to design and ship (If you’re thinking ‘hackathon’- yes, we felt it too!)
“[Time constraints] can sometimes mean that designers and engineers need to work quickly and build on assets that currently already exist.”
Conversely, giving yourself time constraints when none others exist can help streamline our process and also set ourselves up to receive feedback at regular intervals. Best explained with an example, at Microsoft, I was tasked with exploring the vision of a potential app and presenting the possible advantages and challenges it could result in. No constraints existed and I had all the liberty to define the problem statement and make this what I thought it should be. Setting up weekly meetings at the beginning itself with the rest of the stakeholders meant that I not only received progressive feedback, but also managed to break the big tasks into smaller ones and structure the product story accordingly.
2. Tech constraints
These ones are unavoidable. Latency in loading an experience due to calling specific APIs is by far the most common one I have experienced. Others include data that can’t be fetched or the limits of other products we may need to use as foundation. One of the best ways to efficiently work around these constraints is to first work very closely with the engineers, especially while they do their backend work. This helps us designers work more efficiently and know of any limits earlier on, before we explore solutions that run all over the place. Secondly, despite how frustrating these can be, tech constraints have proven to aid assertive decision making, limiting the solution to fewer possibilities and potentially a final one that can actually be built. It has also lead to creative workarounds that have lead to elegant solutions, teaching us designers new ways to address a problem.
3. Available engineering effort
Engineers are the people who will bring any feature to life. However, their time is precious and may not be available for however long and exactly when we want. Sometimes there simply aren’t enough engineers available and at other times, they’re too busy squashing bugs of previously shipped work to code something new. The way to combat this is to plan in advance and also version the feature area out. At Microsoft, engineering talent’s time is expensive and very carefully considered. This leads to the product managers phasing out any feature area into a minimum viable product (MVP) and then progressively releasing the good-to-have enhancements. Another advantage to this is the data we receive from users through the MVP that could be leveraged to better the progressive versions. It also ensures that the feature is releasing iteratively, providing something fresh for users at regular intervals and allowing them to accustom themselves at each step. This has its own considerations to keep in mind, but that is a story for another article.
4. Brand language and set UI components
While working on Nike products at my first job and now at Microsoft Teams, I worked with two brands that have very strong and solid visual and component guidelines. Right from color palettes and illustration styles to a limited sandbox of UI elements and interactions, very rarely are we as designers allowed to deviate. This ensures that the experience for users remains streamlined and consistent, especially when the product is at a hyper growth stage (Teams) and needs to maintain a familiarity with its consumers (Nike). Where creating guidelines is a challenge in itself, given constraints can ensure that we as designers can focus solely on the UX of new experiences, dropping pre-decided interactions and components into place. It has also lead to elegant work-arounds and the reconsideration of smaller components or suggestions that may in fact be redundant for the user experience.
“[Brand guidelines] ensure that the experience for users remains streamlined and consistent, especially when the product is at a hyper growth stage (Teams) and needs to maintain a familiarity with its consumers (Nike).”
5. Marketing, sales and business constraints
These ones can feel like the most liberating or the most frustrating constraints depending on what they are. For instance, at BookMyShow, our events team was to pitch an idea for a people’s choice award that enabled us designers to work on a product that was entirely separate from the core app. It posed an opportunity to create our own brand language and an entire experience from scratch within a time frame. In an alternative universe as it may seem, we often made our revenue through ads, which meant that we had to constantly whip up creative ways to include them in the experience in non-intrusive ways. Some of these kinds of constraints often require a push-back from the product and design team if they hinder user experience. Yet, at times, compromises need to be made to prioritise long term goals for short term experience.
6. Background of the users themselves
It is always important to remember the target audience when designing a product- who they are, what their abilities are and how they will use this product. One of the biggest cases in point here is to design for accessibility. At Microsoft, we had the opportunity to watch a blind user carry out core tasks on our product, which was an eye-opener into their pain points. We were able to pin-point the small and big ways in which Teams needs to be more empathetic towards differently abled users and the changes that were in order. Designing for accessibility especially has proven to create more well-rounded and wholistic designers.
Sometimes, the background of the users and their exposure to technology is a massive constraint too. At BookMyShow for instance, we had to design an app for our theatre partners to track show revenue. Our users were predominantly blue collar workers who required an extremely simple user interface and interactions that were basic (just tap and scroll for the most part). Designing with these constraints was a limiting and required constant user research and feedback to ensure the app was easy to understand and user friendly to people who were very different from us in their skill and mindsets. These constraints mostly come to light through heavy research and require special attention when we design. Failure to consider these means that your product will not be used and thus quite obviously fail.
“[Marketing and sales constraints] often require a push-back from the product and design team if they hinder user experience. Yet, at times, compromises need to be made to prioritise long term goals for short term experience.”
As I have experienced, constraints may be frustrating but eventually serve a profound purpose. In time, we realise that they don’t limit us as much as they set us free. They empower us to create and ship work of value, whilst enabling us to learn new ways to tackle them nearly every time.
What are some of the constraints that have served you?
