No one asked for it

“No one asked for freaking Star Wars.” I was triggered by this tweet from filmmaker James Gunn today.

He’s right. The more Hollywood makes ‘what the audience is asking for’, the less we will be surprised and delighted. Just browse through Netflix to see what James Gunn means: dozens of ‘vanilla’ movies and TV-shows with cliché characters and predictable plots. Sure, they can be satisfying to watch. Most content is not bad. But it’s not great either. Memorable movies are rare.

The same is true for design. If everything we design is exactly what our users are asking for, how can we ever create truly delightful experiences?

‘What users want’ sets our bar way too low. We should be designing what they didn’t know they wanted. Experiences that are surprising, memorable, delightful. That exceed expectations.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do user research. Of course we have to do that. And of course we have to know about design systems, business requirements, technical constraints and all that.

But in order to create truly new things, as designers we also have to develop a special ‘antenna’. A sense of what the world needs.

Because it’s impossible to know the world, we have to start with ourselves: what do I want to see in the world? What inspires and excites me? That’s what James Gunn asked himself. That’s what George Lucas asked himself when he made freaking Star Wars.