In 2020 I wrote a medium article about how designers need to stay flexible and continually increase the tools in their toolkit. Here is an excerpt....
Back in 1966, Abraham Maslow said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” This is a cognitive bias known as “The Law of the Instrument”, or “Maslow’s Hammer”, or even “Golden Hammer”.
This cognitive bias is not just about hand tools, but how we humans approach every unknown thing we encounter. We look at the problem. We search our internal knowledge base, looking for a solution that fits. If we find something that might work, like a hammer, we try it. If we have any measure of success, the hammer’s status is elevated in our minds, and we try it more often. Before you know it, the hammer is our go to solution for each new problem we encounter.
As developers and designers, it is important for us to be diligent in making sure we aren’t always reaching for a hammer when we approach software creation. Web Developers should keep their toolset broad, by leveraging the full language of whichever technology stack they have access to. Designers should do the same…Understand the capabilities of the stack being used for the project, leverage it fully, while keeping your designs within those bounds.
Want to read the article? Click the image...
This cognitive bias is not just about hand tools, but how we humans approach every unknown thing we encounter. We look at the problem. We search our internal knowledge base, looking for a solution that fits. If we find something that might work, like a hammer, we try it. If we have any measure of success, the hammer’s status is elevated in our minds, and we try it more often. Before you know it, the hammer is our go to solution for each new problem we encounter.
As developers and designers, it is important for us to be diligent in making sure we aren’t always reaching for a hammer when we approach software creation. Web Developers should keep their toolset broad, by leveraging the full language of whichever technology stack they have access to. Designers should do the same…Understand the capabilities of the stack being used for the project, leverage it fully, while keeping your designs within those bounds.
Want to read the article? Click the image...
