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Figure 1. Famous works by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is the archetype of a Renaissance man—painter, sculptor, architect, sketcher, scientist, mathematician, civil engineer, inventor, geologist, writer, and more. His famous works of art include moments of grace: the mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa, the icon of human potential known as the Vitruvian Man, and the shocking moment of The Last Supper (see Figure 1). Surprisingly, Leonardo was not as prolific an artist as he was a sketcher. Da Vinci produced more than 13,000 pages of sketches, which are arguably his greatest legacy.
Within these sketch books, Leonardo thinks both scientifically and creatively. You see sketches of futuristic devices, detailed drawings of human anatomy, postulations on plate tectonics, and observations about diet, cholesterol, and heart disease. You see sketches of flowers, weapons, horses, soldiers, and armor. Some sketches are wireframes for statues and bridges, while others are early renditions of paintings. Leonardo’s sketches were his visual thoughts.
After studying the sketchbooks of Leonardo and drawing inspiration from Michael Gelb’s How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci (2000), I developed a set of principles to design like da Vinci, with the goal to improve my own paper prototypes, design studio projects, design reviews, and inspections.
Lesson 1: Strive for Quantity
The first principle is to strive for quantity when you sketch. Leonardo frequently sketched things multiple times, showing an object from different perspectives or different stages of development. For example, Leonardo’s sketches called Study of Flowers show some flowers with leaves and others without leaves (see Figure 2). We see flowers in different stages of development: budding, fully developed, withering, and dying. We see flowers from different viewpoints: above, beside, or below. We see different sizes: small, medium, large.
Figure 2. Study of Flowers with flowers in various stages of development.
Takeaways for UX Projects
You should strive for quantity during the early design stages. If possible, assemble a multi-disciplinary team of five or six people who are required to sketch a few different ideas before a wireframe is rendered. A developer, marketer, designer, and support person will all see the problem differently. For projects with one designer only, ask for at least five sketches. The first idea is rarely, if ever, the best one.
Lesson 2: Use Annotations in Your Sketches
Leonardo sketched over 700 different drawings of human anatomy by watching the dissection of cadavers. Scholars suggest that Leonardo would alter his brushstoke after his detailed sketches of the human body. Da Vinci’s sketches of human anatomy resemble a modern-day wireframe (i.e., a drawing with detailed annotations).
For example, the sketch called The Study of Arms and Shoulders shows four different drawings of the shoulder with annotations between the arms, which was the only place to put this information (see Figure 3). Leonardo used the annotations to show his observations and assumptions.
Figure 3. (left) Leonardo’s Study of Arms and Shoulders with annotations. Figure 4. (right) The Great Lady, the first documented example of female anatomy.
Takeaways for UX Projects
Your initial sketches should use annotations to explain the interactions that you envision, and clarify business requirements. Annotations are an opportunity to collaborate with others and start to build buy-in for your ideas. The initial sketch starts the conversation. The annotations from stakeholders help people solve the same problem, rallying around a common vision. Sketch, explain, annotate, and re-sketch. You will automatically build consensus.
As a UX professional, you should use annotations in your design reviews and heuristic inspections. Assume you have been given a sketch, wireframe, or prototype to evaluate. The quickest way to provide feedback to designers is to take a screenshot and annotate it. Your annotations to an existing design are more effective than a bulleted list or spreadsheet of heuristic violations, as designers can easily see which elements you are referring to.
Lesson 3: Sketch Separately, Review Together
Leonardo created his sketches alone, but he collaborated with other people to flesh out details. For example, he collaborated with Marcantonio della Torre, an anatomist from the University of Pavia, on his famous drawings of human anatomy, such as “The Great Lady” (see Figure 4). Marcantonio reviewed da Vinci’s sketches, checking for completeness and accuracy.
Takeaways for UX Projects
The principle of “sketch separately, review together” helps your projects at the individual and group levels. From an individual perspective, you separate two distinct types of thinking. Sketching uses the creative side of your brain, while reviewing uses the evaluative side of your brain. You will be more effective if you focus on just one type of thinking at a time.
This rule also helps avoid group think, where people (consciously or unconsciously) try to minimize conflict by reaching a quick consensus. Group think does not allow for individual creativity, uniqueness, or critical thinking. With group think, individual ideas are negated, as the group moves towards consensus without exploring different viewpoints.
Encourage people to sketch independently. Then bring them all together to review their output and further collaborate on refined sketches, mash-ups, or final mock-ups.
Lesson 4: Engage Your Imagination
“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?”
—Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo’s sketches are highly imaginative. They include civil engineering projects (bridges, roads, maps), military objects (tank, machine gun), and robots (knight armor which had cranks to show movement). Because da Vinci was curious about flying, his sketchbook also contains an entry about an unsuccessful flight test as well as drawings of a parachute (see Figure 5), airplane, and glider. In some cases, these objects would not be created for over 500 years.
Figure 5. Leonardo’s parachute sketched in 1483.
Takeaways for UX Projects
When you thoroughly know a product, it’s hard to engage your imagination. You know the code and a thousand reasons why something will fail. You need to envision, but you are stuck in the here and now. To move beyond the current state of technology, use scampering. SCAMPER is an acronym where each letter serves as a trigger to think about your problem in a different way:
- S = Substitute
- C = Combine
- A = Adapt
- M = Magnify
- P = Put to Other Uses
- E = Eliminate
- R = Rearrange (or Reverse)
Imagine how Leonardo used scampering. Consider the parachute, where he combined rope and a sheet to illustrate how it might work. Next, consider the mechanical knight, where Leonardo combined a suit of armor with ropes and pulleys.
At your next ideation or brainstorming meeting, write down all the SCAMPER words on the board. Ask the team to scamper for ten minutes and then count how many ideas were created. With a team of five people, you can easily scamper over 150 ideas in ten minutes. If a sketcher is stuck in a design studio, tell them to scamper. If you are performing a heuristic evaluation and can’t think of a recommendation, try to come up with solutions by scampering.
Lesson 5: Defer Judgment
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” —Leonardo da Vinci
If you really want to increase your ability to come up with fresh, innovative ideas, learn how to defer judgment. Leonardo seemed to be very good at it. Consider the story of da Vinci’s bridge, which takes almost 500 years to tell. In 1502, Leonardo sketched a bridge for the Sultan of Istanbul (see Figure 6). The Sultan’s engineers deemed the bridge unstable because they did not like the design of the keystone arch. Needless to say, the Sultan did not build the bridge.
But da Vinci was right—the keystone arch could be stretched and widened without losing its integrity. In 2001, Norway completed a scaled down version of the bridge with a 300-foot span and length of 400 feet (see Figure 7).
Figure 6 (left) Leonardo da Vinci’s 1502 bridge sketch. Figure 7 (right) The da Vinci Bridge in Ås Norway, completed almost 500 years after Leonardo’s sketch.
Takeaways for UX Projects
Early feedback during ideation can derail ideas faster than anything the team might do. Positive feedback is almost as bad as negative feedback. As positive comments are made, the team shuts down as people either talk or listen to the positive comments. Typically, the team then starts coming up with ideas similar to those that received the favorable feedback. Negative comments, on the other hand, discourage people from generating ideas altogether.
- You should go through new ideas with an open mind, trying to understand rather than judge them. On my projects, I enforce the following rules:
- We will defer judgment (both positive and negative)
- We will use positive judgment first (see Lesson 6 below).We will use critical judgment second
- We will vote based on our own intuition and experience.
Lesson 6: Use Positive Judgment First
Leonardo was once given the task of remodeling the Duke of Milan’s kitchen. Leonardo designed conveyor belts to bring food to preparers faster, a large oven to cook at higher temperatures than normal, and a sprinkler system for safety. He also invited local artists to carve individual entrees into works of edible art.
The comedy of errors began with the conveyor belts running too slow. With a quick adjustment, the belts ran too fast and the food piled up. Next, the new oven worked as designed, but the cooks weren’t used to it and burned the food. When a small fire broke out, the sprinklers were used, ruining some of the food. Finally, the artisans were too slow carving the food. The Duke’s party was a disaster.
Just as the Sultan’s engineers failed to appreciate the keystone bridge, the Duke failed to see the value of Leonardo’s “kitchen nightmare.” Da Vinci was using conveyor belts long before the Industrial Revolution. With respect to cooking, Leonardo experimented with higher temperatures, developed his own oven, and used artists to improve food presentation. Finally, Leonardo’s sprinkler system is a fundamental design still used today.
Takeaways for UX Projects
Just as you defer judgment when creating ideas, use positive judgment first to evaluate them. Positive judgment forces you to explore the benefit of a potential idea. Plus, you remain open to new ideas.
The rule of positive judgment first can lead to new discussions, too. In one design studio, the designer could not get to a fifth idea, so she sketched a catapult. Rather than rejecting the idea, the team decided to explore it. What content could be removed? What content could be “catapulted” at the customer? Using positive judgment first forced this deeper conversation.
Nobody likes it when an executive drops into a meeting and lists everything that is wrong with the design. Based on my experience, you will get less executive “swoop and poop” and more executive buy-in if you take the time to explain the “Design like da Vinci” process—how the designers have sketched separately, reviewed together, deferred judgment, and then used positive judgment first. Ask the executives to see the good in the design first and then offer critical comments.
Conclusions
Leonardo da Vinci is considered the greatest thinker in our history—some scholars rank him above Albert Einstein. As designers and usability practitioners, we should take our lessons from Leonardo. You can start by reading Michael Gelb’s book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci and reviewing Leonardo’s sketchbooks.
But you need to be more than a fan of Leonardo da Vinci. Embrace his work and aspire to be like him. Use these guidelines and create your own—they are a starting point in your journey to becoming a better thinker and problem solver.[:zh]列奥纳多•达芬奇是文艺复兴人的典型代表，他集画家、雕塑家、建筑师、科学家、数学家、土木工程师、发明家、地质学家、作家等角色于一身。可以说，达芬奇最伟大的遗产是他留下的 13,000 多页素描。Brian Sullivan 研究达芬奇的素描簿，并从 Michael Gelb 所著的《如何像达芬奇那样思考》(How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci)（2000 年出版）一书中获得启发，制定了一组可供 UX 设计师使用的原则。在这篇文章中，他介绍了以下六条经验：
1. 努力增加数量
2. 对素描加注释
3. 单独素描，总体复审
4. 发挥您的想像力
5. 推迟判决
6. 首先使用正面判断
文章全文为英文版[:ja]レオナルド・ダ・ビンチは典型的なルネサンス期の教養人で、画家、彫刻家、建築家、科学者、数学者、土木工学者、発明家、地質学者、著述家などとして活躍した。しかしダ・ビンチの最も偉大な遺産といえば、おそらく彼の1万3,000ページ以上におよぶスケッチであろう。ブライアン・サリバン（Brian Sullivan）は、ダ・ビンチのスケッチブックを研究し、マイケル・ゲルブ（Michael Gelb）著の「ダ・ヴィンチになる! 創造的能力を開発する7つの法則」（”How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”、2000年発行）からインスピレーションを受けた後、UXデザイナーが活用できる原則のリストを作った。この記事で彼は、次の6つの教訓について説明している：
1. とにかく多くの量を制作すること
2. スケッチに注釈を付けること
3. 別々にスケッチし、一緒にレビューを行うこと
4. イマジネーションをフル活用すること
5. 判断は保留すること
6. 肯定的な判断を先に使うこと
原文は英語だけになります[:]
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