In my personal opinion all professionals should require an “optimal balance” between both hemispheres of the brain to gain the best performance. The most logical and rational disciplines will need maybe more development on inductive thinking to create new ways of exploration or solving problems, or more pictorial skills to communicate in a more visual way their findings, or be more speculative in the design of process that they are going to user. And the most creative professionals should improve the other hemisphere skills such as verbal to communicate better to others, use more often analytic thinking to evaluate their designs propositions or more symbolic to look easily for patterns.

A balance between integration with others and differentiation from others is the key of a complex self. For this reason is in everyone’s responsibility to improve and develop skills to acquire their “desire balance” (between hemispheres). I said that because I believe that an entire discipline is too wide collective of individuals to assign an “expected balance”. Does a graphic designer need the same balance between left and right brain sides than an industrial designer? or interaction designer? I don’t think so. For example an interaction designer will need a 50-50% as he needs to understand in a rational way context needs and desires and at the time be creative at the time of proposing the definition of the behaviour of the product. And an industrial designer should be maybe more rational as his task involve more production-engineering coordination. But a balance of both hemispheres is need as explain in the article.

Also this helps to explain that in my opinion design process is more much complex than just shifting between different modes of though in the different stages of the process, as many more people and ways of thinking are integrated the process. I don’t think that the balance should be look between the different stages because I believe that the balance should be look inside in each of the stages. Obviously the ideation stage will be need a more creative thinking and in the implementation stage a more rational thinking will be need but this balance is determinate a priory in the strategy itself. I think that the relevance is to try to integrate symbolic, analytic, rational or deductive skills in the creative stages and in the evaluation stages try to integrate spatial, intuitive or pictorial aspects.

The difficulty in balancing creativity and logical process in my experience is tied to the populations I have been a part of. I have been inside of “multimedia” environments where I was valued for my analytical, process-oriented techniques among a large population of “creatives.” I am now valued for my “creative” skills inside of an equally large population of business analysts and developers. Both have been very rewarding, but my passions lean toward the middle, and I am starting to see interaction design as the most realized of those “middles.”

It is difficult to demonstrate the value to either side the things that I consider exciting and useful, such as interaction design, user-centered business analysis, information architecture, etc. The developers think I am (or perhaps should be) excited about designing the logo (I’m not, but I can) and the creatives can’t understand why I’m not bored to death sitting through weeks of process research with the client (I’m not, and I do.) It’s very similar to an actor being typecast in the film world. To many, you are simply whatever your last role portrayed you as.

Once you begin to analyze, inform and deliver within projects, the difference and value of having a “creative” in the “business” stages of a project is seen, as it is in the development stages to a lesser extent. Only by building reputation, however, have I been able to get somewhat beyond the “bring in the designers last” philosophy.

“Wild thinking” should be introduced early in the process as it benefits all parties involved-users, clients and developers. This type of thinking provides value not only on web projects but particularly desktop application design, as that world is more deeply entrenched in “traditional” thinking and can use that occasional jolt of original thought.

Designers who are unwilling to explore the divide between creative and logical thinking will probably find themselves stagnating. More and more of what is designed needs to be critically analyzed rather than simply visually appropriate in order to get real approval from that most “unacknowledged” person in all of these worlds — the user, the person the design is for.

>Different choices requires a creative approach.
>Someone must lead the way

>The method is less important than the result

Right on, brother!

There are a lot of books and examples of where the ‘method’ is at fault, never the designer.

Most designers or developers hide in their company’s organigram (should I call meeting?) or confine themselves to other homogenized experiments where they can avoid confronting the ‘real world.’

Without the protection mantle of some ‘scientific method,’ designers would be forced to accept personal responsibility for the validity and reliability of their decision-making, instead of spending-all-their-time using company resources producing numbers to support things they already know.

If you accept responsibility there is no where to run and nowhere to hide. Do lousy work and you will be found out.

It’s a motivational technique. Sort of like old pirates, burnng their ships upon arrive in the New world.

Mission-driven projects or research, contract research or other ‘arranged’ project help, (i.e. things on the quantitative-side), uphold and maintain a Wal-Mart-type sociology (no surprises, please!), and vitiate any efforts to discover and explore the actual world.

You need to be creative to be creative. It is the spirit in the fire which cooks your dinner.

While we tend to discuss a lot of the ‘mechanics’ of our discipline, there are some softer issues that we haven’t pursued. As Scott pointed out we need to find that ‘intersection’ of ‘best ideas’ for an even better idea. That means that we have to learn to work through creative tension. We have to dance the dance several times until we’re comfortable with the ‘confrontations’ that will ensue. We have to engage in these activities with a safetynet of ‘trust’: that nothing is intentionally directed at the person. And that, paraphrasing a concept attributed to Gerald Hirshberg (Director of Nissan Design International), the ensuing abrasion should generate “light rather than heat”.

Basically, his idea is that we should not be afraid of the outcome of the right half.
Also, that the left rational part can’t create nothing new but only elaborate on what the right side suggests.

That there is an intuitive spark that shows us the target, and then and only then we can build the rationale of the path to get there. And that it never happens the other way.

I was impressed by the book because it was describing the way I functioned.
As an engineering student then, I was being trained the wrong way and this reading somehow legalized what I was really doing.

Scott’s article has refreshed all that ideas, thanks Scott!

The question is…”Based on the fact that design is objective, meaning people have their own likes and dislikes, how does a business critique a designer’s work?…How does a designer’s ‘grading scale’ work when there is no right or wrong in creative Art?”

I got some good feedback from this article on how creative teams come up with alternative ideas as they continually analyze their thoughts and ideas…but I was just wondering personally, if you, Scott, had any more knowledge/ wisdom/ advice you could give me based on my career question I asked above?

Once again…thanks a lot for the article,
Hope to hear from you,

Dan