Real People Are Squishy

Another anecdote from my design education...

One afternoon my friends and I were working in the studio. My dear friend Inês was designing a wearable product and was using a mannequin to prototype it. We were discussing some aspect of it, and because a mannequin is rigid plastic and human beings are not, I said to her,

“Remember, real people are squishy”.

Granted, not the most profound insight, but the phrase stuck.

For the rest of our time together, we used this phrase to encapsulate that, however good our models, research, ergonomic data, or intentions were, you had to remember the people who would use, carry, deliver, build, recycle and buy our products. We used large data to inform what we did, but we were designing for a very specific people. Whether that be researchers and personnel working in the polar regions, individuals in professional settings who struggled with physical anxiety symptoms and couldn't just take 5 minutes, or eco-conscious individuals who would like to grow their own food but live in small apartments with no green space, or teenagers studying for GCSE and A-level exams and struggling to concentrate in the social media-driven culture. These are all people, and could all appear in the same large data set, but they are all different from each other and experience different challenges, joys and situations. Every person is unique in some aspect, and no generalised model can capture that. You have to speak and experience things with your target groups to really understand what they need.

In the West especially, we live in a culture obsessed with big data. Everything is measured, tracked and optimised. From our time, our preferences, and routines, to our office practices and work. User data and market analysis are compiled and sifted for insights and opportunities. This isn’t inherently bad, but it is detached from people. Quantitative (numerical-based data) is ‘scientific’, tidy and accurate. It can make pretty charts and makes it easy to track improvements, but it also misses most of the details and nuances of reality. Data such as this tells you what is happening, but it can’t tell you why. That comes from speaking with people, observing the messy realities of life and acknowledging that people are seldom the rational entities we think we are. The why comes from remembering that real people are squishy, and respecting that 'squishiness'.

Remembering that real people are squishy, and respecting that 'squishiness'.

If your systems or processes are not working, it’s easy to think people are the problem. If they just followed the instructions, didn’t make mistakes, were more compliant, etc. The solution to this is often carrot and stick - rewards for compliance and punishments for divergence. Often, this creates an unwelcoming culture, increases turnover, and/or makes the original problem worse.

Forcing people to change to fit a system is possible, but it never really works out well long term. Productivity goes down, corporate culture deteriorates, innovation and continuous improvement stop, turnover increases, and tacit knowledge is lost. No one likes being forced to change.

Systems, on the other hand, are not conscious and don’t care about being changed, modified or removed. Well-designed systems embrace the squishiness of people, and build in compliance by default. Chances are, it is easier and less painful to modify your systems to suit your people than the other way around.

So remember that Real People are Squishy. Organisations that remember this create cultures, innovations, systems and processes that not only work amazingly well, but are also wonderful to use.