"Just a few weeks ago, I was working with my team to reinvent a complex workflow. We were struggling a bit. Stuck in the land of "today." Instead of jumping straight into "good" solutions or what might be better, I provoked the team by asking to produce a deliberately "bad" version. What happened next surprised us all. As we looked at what we thought would be terrible solutions, we discovered they had some redeeming qualities."
"Elements that seemed obviously bad at first glance turned out to solve problems we hadn't even identified yet. Our "bad" solutions were teaching us about the problem space in ways our "good" thinking never could. Plus, as we intentionally worked towards a "bad" option we better understood what did and didn't work for the user. That terrible solution acted as a powerful filter for what it means to be "good"."
"Most of the time we think we're exploring when we're really just optimizing minor variations of one "good" solution. We brainstorm solutions that are all reasonably acceptable (and eerily similar), tweak them until they're slightly better, then pick the least problematic (cheapest) option. But...if you only explore acceptable solutions, how do you know what makes them actually good? What's the definition of "good"? Something that's good is only "good" if it's in juxtaposition to something that's "bad"."
Designing intentionally bad solutions can uncover hidden problems, reveal unexpected benefits, and expand understanding of the problem space. Creating deliberately poor options forces teams out of narrow optimization and surface assumptions that acceptable variations obscure. Bad designs act as a filter that clarifies trade-offs and highlights what actually matters to users. Knowing an option is intentionally terrible encourages more rigorous evaluation and comparison. Exploring both good and bad alternatives prevents the single-option trap and helps define meaningful criteria for goodness by contrast, ultimately improving design judgment and user-centered decisions.
Read at Medium
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