LEADERSHIP IN THEORY
How to Use Design Principles in Leadership
Design Principles are Meant For Us to Use Things Better — Here are 2 Principles to Apply at Work
As we humans navigate the world, our experiences, thoughts and personality traits shape us. It affects the way we perceive and process things in the world around us — people study psychology to understand this blueprint-like pattern in ourselves.
Most people think of psychology in the form of a medical practice, like in being a psychiatrist or psychologist. However, psychology has always been prevalent in our society. With the advent of technology, there are more avenues for us to be affected, from the applications on our screens to the way items are displayed in a convenience store, to behavioral economics and even digital marketing.
People leverage psychology in the world of design. They aim to build intuitive, human-centered products and experiences. They are thinking about how they can get you to fill out your cart faster, register for an account faster and even staying on the application longer, all while making sure the whole experience is one that keeps you coming back.
Hence, designers like these are called user experience designers. Also known as UX designers, these are the people responsible for making your application with one less button or one less page. It is rooted in data and evidence — hence, UX designers documented a list of principles to guide UX design, to draw inspiration and ensure that their products are at least adhering to some of them.
These principles are deep-rooted in research and psychology. Though they may be design principles, understanding them fully can give leaders a new edge as they lead with design principles in mind.
Though there are twenty design principles in total according to Laws of UX, many may swear by more or fewer laws. While they may be called ‘laws’, they are more of guiding principles. In the context of leadership, applying design principles requires more unorthodox thinking.
Hick’s Law
Also known as the Hick-Hyman Law, it is coined by two psychologists in 1952, who set out to study how the number of stimuli present will affect an individual’s reaction time.
The results are unsurprising: the more things there are, the slower we react — it also gave rise to “K.I.S.S.” (“Keep It Short and Simple”), a design principle that is widely applied across all design and non-design functions.
Designers use Hick’s Law to simplify choices where possible. For instance, apparel types are categorized on an e-commerce fashion website. The number of steps to reach a shopping cart is often cut down to a range of three to five steps.
However, Hick’s Law doesn’t eliminate the whole decision-making process: sometimes, complexity is inevitable. For example, a DSLR camera is presented with many different controls and options as compared to a digital camera or smartphone. Complex games like online MMORPGs are presented with a more complex interface rather than casual games like Angry Bird.
While the design principle itself is meant to remind designers to narrow down big volumes of information, it is also an indication of a human’s ability to handle many things at once.
Application at Work
Known as choice overload, having too many choices can cripple us if the context does not require it. Even after choosing a choice out of many, the fact that we ‘ignored’ the other choices can make us feel regret, according to a study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Having too many choices can cripple us if the context does not require it.
Having too many choices with equally perceived hierarchy can also cause analysis paralysis: we overthink and stay still, not moving forward and progressing.
However, that needs to be contextualized: we wouldn’t make the same decision-making process in choosing a place to stay for a vacation as opposed to choosing between drinking Coke or Pepsi.
At work, many situations require us to make a choice.
From choosing between the target audience for an ad group to budgeting for the next project, making choices is part and parcel of our professional lives. Like with design, certain choices require more deliberation. Some can even boil down to instinct.
Leaders must have good social and situational awareness. By understanding what the situation requires, the Hick’s Law can then be applied effectively.
- If response time is critical, simplify choices. While some choices may have more severity than others, you can keep the number of options small.
- If a situation needs more deliberation and time to consider, present every choice and treat each choice equally. While analysis paralysis can be a problem, having a team helps to create a room of people with different experiences and expertise to judge each choice differently.
As such, Hick’s Law can only be applied to simple quick decisions inappropriate context.
Pareto Principle
Also known as the 80/20 principle, it is commonplace in the world of design and investing. Founded by Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, he realized that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the population — another thing of note, is that 20% of the peapods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.
In design, the Pareto Principle is used to guide inputs and outputs. Though the ratio may not always stay true, it is generally almost always true that a small proportion of inputs will generate a larger than expected outputs.
Going 80/20 helps designers identify what to focus on and what to reduce. For instance, a certain page might be getting the main bulk of the total web traffic. Applying the Pareto Principle will mean zooming in to that page and scrutinizing it for areas of improvement, rather than treating every page equally and allocating resources in that proportion.
Using the Pareto Principle helps to narrow options down — though that can only be possible after gathering substantial data and conclusions.
The design principle is meant to drive efficiency. While all the parts do come into play, not all of them deserve the same level of priority, focus, and amount of resources.
Application at Work
Much like webpages and design, our output at work is also largely under the influence of the Pareto Principle. For instance, we may take 20% of our total work hours in a day to complete 80% of a certain task — the rest is spent on “busy work” or procrastinating.
Leaders can use the Pareto Principle at work by applying it in decision-making processes. For instance, 80% of the best work in the company is often produced by 20% of the workforce — thus, leaders can identify productive and mediocre performance by applying the principle.
The Pareto Principle can be applied to employee management, in this case:
- Spend 80% of your time listening to your team. Rather than telling them what to do, spending more time listening will help you understand your team’s perspectives, thus helping you provide feedback better.
- Identify the “20% performers” to determine how you can allocate resources so you can drive efficiency.
Design principles are versatile and most of them can be easily related to the workplace.
Though they hold different names, most of us are applying them unconsciously. It is through awareness that we can apply them deliberately to practice, and thus become a better leader overall. Without understanding principles, theories and philosophies, the leadership will eventually crumble.
Leadership is way more than just having a title: it’s about character and knowledge.
