On what moves us forwards

I was listening to Federico Viticci on MacStories Unwind+ when he said something that’s stayed with me:

It’s creativity that moves humanity forwards.

I’ve been thinking about how little room we sometimes give that idea in the way we talk about work. We talk a lot about getting things done, and we’re getting increasingly good at shortening the distance between having an idea and shipping it. I like being able to make things faster. I’ve got plenty of things I’d like to make.

But I also want time to work out what those things could be. Sometimes that means trying something I can’t yet justify, then seeing whether there’s enough in it to carry on. I don’t always know what I’m interested in until I’ve spent a bit of time with it.

Making my own typeface is a fairly good example. There were already more than enough fonts I could have used on this site. I wanted to understand how they worked though, and making one gave me a reason to look properly. Once I started using it, I could see problems I hadn’t noticed in the editor. I’d change something, put it back into a heading, and find out whether it felt any better. Which usually gave me another thing to try.

I’ve written before about wanting to keep making it, and a lot of that enjoyment comes from learning enough to notice something I couldn’t see before. Choosing a font more efficiently wouldn’t have given me that.

A lot of creative work starts with an interest that doesn’t have an obvious use yet. You follow it for a while, and some of it goes nowhere. Occasionally you end up with something you couldn’t have planned at the beginning because you didn’t know enough to imagine it. I’d like us to be more comfortable spending time on things at that stage, when explaining what they’ll become is still quite difficult.

I recognise that in design engineering too. Building an interaction can change the idea I started with. Something feels awkward when I actually use it, or a limitation makes me reconsider how the whole thing should work. I need to be paying attention for that to happen though. If I’m only thinking about finishing the implementation, every surprise becomes another thing to get past, and I can miss a fairly good reason to change what I’m making.

This is where I keep coming back to AI. Being able to try an idea without spending an evening on the setup is useful; it gives more people a chance to make something they might otherwise have left alone. I’d like to see what people make when getting started takes less out of them.

I’m less convinced by the idea that we should use all the time we save to produce more. Sometimes I’d rather spend it exploring the thing I’ve already got. Try a different approach, or understand why the first version feels a bit wrong before asking for another one. There’s no reason that getting to a first version faster has to mean spending less time with the idea.

Knowing how something works helps with that. If I understand the layout, I can explain why an interface needs to behave differently. If I’ve spent time with type, I can see why a heading feels uncomfortable, and I’ve got somewhere to start changing it. That knowledge also helps me recognise an interesting result I wouldn’t have thought to ask for. I can follow it a bit further because I have some idea of what I’m looking at.

I’d like us to keep making room for that kind of learning, even when a tool can get us to an acceptable answer much faster. Developing an opinion through the work takes time. You have to try something, use it, and notice what bothers you, and sometimes you need to leave it alone for a while before you can see it properly.

I think that’s why Federico’s line has stayed with me. I want time to play with something without already knowing what I’ll have to show for it. Some of the things I try won’t go anywhere, and I’m quite happy for that to be part of making things. I’d rather have the time to find out.

The episode is “Hollywood Rooftops and Zucchini Flowers”, episode 316 of MacStories Unwind+. The Unwind+ version linked here requires a Club MacStories membership.