Michael Roller

Failsafe: Latest Article for Product Design Hub

My latest article for Product Design Hub is called Failsafe, inspired by a student who took big risks and eventually failed to finish his chair prototype on time. Through his story, my advice to design students is to take these big risks, albeit with some proper planning in advance, so that they will learn from failure, overcome their fear of it, and understand what it sometimes takes to be successful.

Why are some designers afraid of failure? The truth is that designers are more comfortable with failure than most, but the fear is so deeply ingrained in our society that we must work hard to avoid it. Over at The 99 percent, research analyst Michael Schwalbe says it best: “Ultimately, it’s the ones who barrel through the discomfort, are resilient in the face of failure, and master the last 30% of taking risk who reach the highest levels of performance.”

So as not to steal their thunder, I’ll let you read the rest of the article over at their site. If you enjoy it, I hope you’ll comment and share your thoughts with them. Thanks again to Product Design Hub team for publishing my work and to Max Schlachter for sharing his story.

Tags: design making, failure, furniture, risk taking, student work

4 Comments to Failsafe: Latest Article for Product Design Hub

1. 

   Hi Mike,
   I really liked your article and I think its interesting you chose to cover this topic. It is something some of us talked about a lot as we struggled through the chair quarter. There seems to be a divide in our studio between the play-it-safers and the risk takers, and the divide is a source of much frustration for both sides…

   Do you think that the chair project, given the timeline and lack of training in technical skills leading up to it, is meant as a forced-risk project in our curriculum? After each project I have gotten a better perspective on the bigger lessons learned, and I do feel like the chair is a purposely risky proposition.
Carly on November 25th, 2009
2. 

   Carly – I think the chair project has so much history at UC that it’s hard to remember why it’s a good project! But you bring up a good point – one of the things that makes it great is that it’s really tough! Pair that challenge with a subject matter that most designers are eager to take on and you get great results. (In fact, you might even be able to argue that the more conservative designs from this studio are historically less successful. But that’s another article…)

   Ideally, all projects should present challenges to students packaged in something they’re excited to work on. Maybe they shouldn’t all be as tough as designing and building a chair, but I think in the future we should be aware of these projects and use them very purposefully.
Michael on November 25th, 2009
3. 

   There is a great conversation about risk-taking over at LinkedIn’s Industrial Design group. Check it out and join the discussion! http://www.linkedin.com/newsArticle?viewDiscussion=&articleID=86946950&gid=80335&split_page=1#comment_10
Michael on November 29th, 2009
4. 

   I recently came upon a video that made me think of this article. It expands on the idea of failure as it relates to designers. One of the big points that I drew from the video is the idea that for example, the Air Force or FAA has an engineering failure protocol if a plane were to crash, but designers more often than not (within any of my short experiences), have no methods of analyzing past projects. The tendency is to only look at the few products that have performed at a high level.

   Here’s the video… http://www.blakemccreary.com/2010/04/why-designers-fail-scott-berkun-talk/

   Thoughts?
Aaron on April 27th, 2010

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