Great Designers Steal
Attributed to the world famous artist Pablo Picasso, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” applies continually with every new way we find to express creativity, and this includes UX Design.
Whilst some believe it unethical and unoriginal, I disagree — We stand on the shoulders of giants, without them before us to inspire and learn from, we’d have nothing of the world we live in!
In this article I’m going to explore the concept of ‘stealing’ in UX Design, and why if it’s not a practice you’re already doing, you should be.
Stealing Makes The UX World Work
It’s evident without a doubt that trending affordances are what create familiar and intuitive experiences, sure there are some other small caveats that make them up too, but the bulk of it is those affordances generated throughout a user’s lifetime cycle with tech.
Let’s say we hypothetically chose to ignore creating a fluid and familiar experience for our users, we still have more grounds to steal and keep on stealing: Time & Effort. No doubt you’ve got more features and projects to be working on, so why not be inspired by the 10s and 100s of hours of research that somebody has done already? Hard work really doesn’t make much sense in this context, because I can guarantee that a team with hyper fixation on one feature has done research that would be incredibly valuable for us to peek at.
Okay, so scratch the familiarity, cut the time saving and we’ve still got one more reason to steal…
Making the Great, Greater
Picasso’s greatest works of art, the ones you pictured in your mind when you heard his name, were not as original as many believe. In fact, he had an entire phase in his art journey deeply inspired by African Traditional art, which in turn evolved into his familiar and world renowned works.
Now I’m not going to say you’re going to become the Picasso of UX Design (But don’t let me stop you), however at some points you’ll find a new way to do something innovative and unique by combining the ideas you were generously gifted, something that simply hasn’t been done before and STILL manages to work perfectly with affordances. Of course you could achieve this by yourself, but remember time & effort?
UX != Creativity
Don’t let the title fool you into my beliefs about UX Design, of course it’s a deeply creative field — However I believe it to fit into a boundary of creativity that doesn’t quite align with the traditional definitions.
UX isn’t just about creating something that looks good, it’s about understanding the User and their actions on a deeply empathetic level, and I believe that this allows each UX designer to create their own personal style of ‘Creativity’.
In lieu of this article, I’d like to propose ‘Stealing’ as one of those styles, and I think this is the code to access it:
Understand the Context: Don’t just steal, understand what it is you’re taking from.
Combine & Explore: Feel free to blend the ideas that might seem contradicting or wheel reinvention-esque — They could end up being the wheel themselves.
Keep Original: Don’t copy and paste, that’s not stealing — It’s boring.
In Summary
The debate of Originality vs Theft is something that will linger in the design world for as long as humans are the ones designing, but more importantly I feel that recognising tactical usage of different styles of creativity, even ones you may not often adopt, can become valuable tools in your design process, arguably even turn you into a better designer along the way — just follow the 3 steps!
🎨 By becoming a Medium Member, you get unlimited article access & Support Creators Like Myself!
📧 Check out my UX email newsletter, with Digestible Knowledge Every Wednesday.
🗃️ You can find all my links and resources here at my UX Masterlist.
If you enjoyed my content, Follow me, it keeps me writing!
