How I bought a gift for my wife

For me, good design is a mindset. It’s how you go about solving real human problems.

To describe what designers do isn’t always easy. To explain design thinking as part of my job is even harder. My usual response to those who ask is usually that I design apps. It seems to satisfy the majority, and avoids the rabbit hole which I’m about to take you down. Stay with me.

Recently, I was at the shops to buy a gift for my wife’s upcoming birthday and it occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to use this scenario to present how I would go about this as a design thinker.

Asking good questions

If you’ve been following my writing so far, you may have read that asking right questions is an important skill that I believe good designers have.

One great question to start with, ‘Why are you buying a present in the first place?’ We can often take the first idea from our head (or the client) and assume it’s the right thing to do, so starting with the why is important. Simon Sinek has a great video on ‘Start with Why’.

Actually, it turns out I’m not in the business of buying presents at all! If I dig a little, I would soon realise I’m ultimately searching for a way to show my wife how much I appreciate her.

This is actually the problem I’m ‘designing’ for.

If I poked my brain a little more, I might consider a spa session, a romantic date, a massage, or a day out at the beach (especially without the baby) are just as valid ideas to show appreciation.

Towards solutions

How do I know which option to choose? Well, I could ask my wife directly but that would spoil the surprise - ‘not knowing the gift before hand’ is a measure of success for me, the gift-giver.

Instead, I might research indirectly - maybe asking her friends for ideas or searching on her phone for clues when she’s not looking (please peek responsibly). A less intrusive manner might involve a quick Google search on upcoming events locally.

Reality check. At this point I didn’t have much time left (constraints) and since I was already at the shops (sunk cost) I went with my initial assumption: Buying a gift will make my wife feel appreciated.

Next, I start thinking about how to achieve my goal in the best way possible.

What time of the day should I go to avoid crowds? What’s the best route to drive to avoid traffic? Could a coffee on the way give me a delightful pick-me-up? Are there other errands on the way I can check off to make my trip really efficient? Did I check the weather to make sure I won’t be caught out?

If I was really good, I might have also planned ahead to find out where to park for free and called ahead to make sure the shop had the item I wanted in stock.

Measuring success

Finally, success! But how do I know I’ve succeeded in making my wife feel appreciated when she receives her gift? If I’m scientific, I might measure the width of my wife’s smile, whether her smile shows teeth, how long her hug lasts, and what combination of words she uses to convey her feelings. I could go one better and compare these measurements to past events.

Of course, if I actually did this irl she would probably reconsider our marriage. So naturally I would go with my gut.

You might think - but I do all these things subconsciously when I buy gifts and I’m not a designer! And you would be right. I believe everyone can be a designer; at least, everyone can partake in design thinking to solve problems whether they are aware of it or not.

A good design thinker

We interact with so many problems and therefore solutions in our everyday lives that we usually have a good sense of what works and what doesn’t. However, since we’re humans, our assumptions aren’t always true and our ‘gut feel’ is fraught with biases, limits and emotions.

A good designer uses the right amount of scaffolding in their process to find answers that validates their ‘gut feel’ with evidence backed by research in an iterative loop. This takes effort, and also why designers also need to be armed with a lack of entitlement - the want to be influenced through effort isn’t in our nature.

Of course, asking the right questions is just one part of the design process. We usually call this ‘discovery’. I’ll need to come up with a better analogy to encompasses everything I do (iterate)!

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed this little trip. Happy design thinking!