Emotional capacity: The skill that will let you have it all
How can product designers feasibly excel in all the areas that are expected from us? Enter emotional capacity.
Delivering valuable, quality content is always my number one priority. I’m working on a few exciting projects connected to Detach Instance, and in order to continue delivering on these fronts, I’ll be sending posts out every other week instead of weekly. I’m excited to share what’s been up my sleeves in the next couple of weeks.
In other news, this is an exciting week for design with Figma Config happening. If you’re attending live and looking for a friend, come find me! I’d love to meet you. For the rest of you, definitely tune in virtually for free, and tell me which talks you enjoyed and why.
Software product design is a weird job. The role is ambiguous and interpreted differently across companies, yet we all talk about design as if it’s a function that’s universally understood. If you add working at a startup to the mix (which, many of us in tech do), the paradox compounds. We represent the user, yet make decisions that benefit the business. We craft pixel perfect, detail-oriented designs, but accept scrappy interpretations and cut corners for launches. We’re the first to bridge functions, yet the last functional opinion to be considered.
Despite all of this, we’ve managed to balance on this paradox precipice. All it takes is strong visual skills, an understanding of business, academic rigor in our research, the fundamentals of human psychology, data intuition, empathy for our users, engaging storytelling abilities, clear communication, and… Well, it’s no wonder that half of us are ready to quit tech to open a pottery studio! The expectations are heavy. And, for new designers trying to enter tech, impossible to meet.
Enter emotional capacity.
Emotional capacity is the skill to reduce the burden of other skills. Emotional capacity is expanding the empathy we have for our users to ourselves, our teammates, our cross-functional partners, and even beyond that. Emotional capacity is about increasing our tolerance to our frustrations and triggers so that we can have longer, more fulfilling careers in tech. Emotional capacity is turning mundane moments into opportunities to excel more quickly than we otherwise would have. Emotional capacity is leveraging the skills of the people around us and beyond.
Before you stop reading because you’re getting “woo woo” vibes, this is an assurance that this arc of Detach Instance on emotional capacity will be just as practical and tangible as my last arc on core design skills. I treat emotional capacity like any other skill you can practice, strengthen, and grow. After a slightly longer preamble than usual, here are some steps to strengthen our emotional capacities.
Step one: Detach from the work
We can comfortably represent our users’ needs because we maintain a safe distance from our users. Even if we make decisions that don’t accommodate every single user, we don’t feel hurt and can continue to represent users to our best ability. The natural boundary that we have with our users preserves our emotional capacity because boundaries make us feel safe.
The boundary between us and our jobs though, is much less defined and maybe even nonexistent for those of us who forego basic human needs, like eating and sleeping, in order to work. The lack of a distinct boundary between us and our work means we feel unsafe when we stop working. Step one is setting boundaries by detaching from our work. Here are a few ways to detach:
You’re assigned a new task → Make it a rule to wait 24 hours before diving in
You’re being bugged by stakeholders to make low stakes changes to your designs that you don’t agree with → End the discussion by completing the tasks as quickly and simply as possible
You’re working extra hours to deliver work you’re proud of → Set time limits and tangible deliverables for every step of your process. For example, time box 2 hours to build 3 wireframe directions for your first round of exploration
Step two: Iterate to an open framing
Do you remember learning how “the user is never wrong” and “it’s never the user’s fault”? I refer to these as closed framings, framing the situation such that there’s no next step to take. Closed framing isn’t conducive to letting us move our design work forward, which is why we often use open framings, like “How Might We” statements to open pathways to multiple solutions.
Once you’ve detached from your work, the next step to strengthening your emotional capacity is making it an unconscious habit to open your framing. It takes a lot of practice to train our brains to think this way, but keep at it, even small progress is worthwhile. Start by noticing whenever you have a strong feeling about a situation. Then break that feeling down into a statement and a question starting with “I wonder…”. For most of us, it’s the negative feelings that get us, but this technique can be used on strong positive feelings too. Here are a few examples of open over closed framings:
“Leadership made a bad decision to staff me on asset production for our marketing team” → “Leadership is really excited about marketing right now. I wonder what’s the best way for me to drive positive impact?”
“This design critique isn’t helpful at all, I’m getting feedback about copy and spacing instead of feature usability“ → “I’m getting a lot of feedback about copy and spacing even though I asked for usability feedback. I wonder how the copy and spacing impede perceived usability?”
“Engineering built everything completely off design spec even though I spent so much time building these specs” → “This version of the build looks pretty different from what I designed. I wonder what the next steps are to align the two better in the next rev?”
Step three: Rebuild your situation
With this new framing, you’re now in an advantageous position to decide how you want to take action. The next step is to rebuild your situation. This is where you can reap tangible benefits from having high emotional capacity. Because you’ve detached and opened your framing, you have the capacity to clearly see and objectively evaluate the options that will help you make the most of a situation.
Treating your previous “I wonder…” statement like a “How might we…” statement, you can brainstorm your options. Whether or not you decide to take action is really based on your emotional capacity to stay detached and continue to maintain an open framing. Here are a couple examples of what I mean:
Your job doesn’t offer you the creative fulfillment you need → Before deciding to change roles, you decide to try a few creative hobbies outside of work
You’re struggling to get approval to run user research for a project → Rather than doing everything you can to green light research for this project, you decide to spend time getting to know your stakeholders, so that you can better understand how to position research for your next project
Leadership pulls the plug on a project you’ve spent months working on → Instead of dropping the project cold turkey, you decide to summarize your highlights and learnings in a case study that you can present to your team and, in the future, externally
It’s taken me a long time to realize that our overall emotional strength as designers is just as important as our technical skills. I’ve spent a majority of my past 10 years as a product designer, brute forcing my way through, instead of building my emotional capacity. But when I look back on my experience, I’ve realized that for every time I “failed”, there was an opportunity to flex my emotional capacity and find success in other ways. Looking at my peers in this industry, it’s not the ones who have become visual design gurus or achieved CEO-level business acumen who are thriving in their careers, it’s the ones who have the highest emotional capacities. I’m on an ongoing journey to build my own emotional capacity, and perhaps one day, I'll share how this journey began.
Join me on this journey and tell me about your experiences: what has challenged your emotional capacity as a designer?
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This was a goody, Kristin. I'm in that weird phase in my visual design career where I know what good is, but I don't always know how to achieve it. It's really frustrating sometimes when I hand a design over for feedback, and the subtlest tweaks make such a big difference. Applying and choosing a color palette, UI styling, icons, etc. I often think "ugh, why couldn't I see that?!"
The passive way I deal with this is to try to give myself grace. I'm good at other things, and I'll get better with more experience and guidance. The active way I manage it is to practice. If I'm in charge of wireframes and someone else is doing the final polish, I'll keep working on it anyway to see what I can come up with and then compare it with the final design. My current team is good about creating a Loom while reviewing my work and making adjustments so I can see how and why they changed something.
When all else fails, a good cry or a few dozen repetitions of the serenity prayer can't hurt to help quiet the mind. 😃
I found this article to be incredibly timely, particularly after watching the recent config talk with Brian Chesky and Dylan Field. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it (Leading through uncertainty: A design-led company - Brian Chesky, Config 2023).
During the talk, Chesky discusses the constant need for designers to justify their existence and decisions more than any other role. I wholeheartedly agree with him, as I believe this is a fundamental issue that leads to burnout.
For instance, drawing from my personal experience as a product designer at the same startup for nearly 10 years, I have consistently focused on reducing friction throughout the user journey. My goal has been to minimize clicks, required fields, scrolls, introductory tutorials, modals, and other obstacles to enhance site navigation. To illustrate this concept, I created visuals and loom videos that likened each step to hurdles on a track field, highlighting the unintended consequences of adding barriers instead of removing them.
My concern was not just a subjective feeling; it was supported by research and observations of numerous users who struggled to access the site due to excessive time requirements. However, despite expressing my concerns, additional steps were added, and the number of hurdles continued to grow.
Eventually, the frustration of "screaming into the void" became overwhelming, leading me to reframe my perspective, as discussed in the article. I reminded myself that, ultimately, this is a business that needs to generate revenue. I detached myself from the outcome and accepted that a lengthy signup process was a necessary source of income. To cope, I adapted, reframed, and embraced a more pragmatic approach, letting go of my perfectionism as a designer. Although I don't necessarily agree that this should be the norm, it became a survival mechanism.
In summary, the article resonated with me by highlighting the challenges faced by designers and emphasizing the need to adapt and thrive in such circumstances.
Another talk that has helped me reframe is "The End of Navel Gazing: Paul Adams, UX London 2018" (https://vimeo.com/275265188).
Thank you, Kristin, for sharing your thoughts on this matter. Your insights are greatly appreciated, and you articulated them well.