“What would you like to see here?”
And there it is. Perhaps the most inane question ever posed in the course of a public design process. And posed it is, constantly.
“We’re doing a master plan for downtown. What would you like to see here?”
It’s crazy. In one sweeping question, practitioners not only set the stage for unmet expectations, they devalue the art and craft of urban design at the same time.
Steve Jobs famously said, “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” He didn’t mean that people are incapable of articulating their own needs and desires. He meant that they can identify things they want to be able to do, or problems they need solved, but they’re not necessarily equipped to deliver the most elegant solution.
They’ll know it when they see it.
The iPhone emerged this way, not because it was committee-crafted via focus group but because Jobs was an astute observer and a relentless innovator. He understood how to apply his passion for design to the near-universal needs and desires of our age.
This product was not a response to a focus group question asking, “What type of phone would you like to see?”
When we ask, “What would you like to see here?”, we suggest that all ideas have comparable merit. That they’re all equally worthy of implementation, even though we know that’s not the case.
We lead people to believe that if they ask for a library, there will be a library, regardless of whether or not one’s needed. Or budgeted. Or carries with it the necessary political will to become real. We draw the requested coffee shop or grocery store, with no consideration of market demand or the fact that the city plays no role in leasing decisions.
We take orders when we should be leading participants towards answers.
We actually devalue participation when we don’t solicit the information that breeds meaningful discourse. Or forces the discussion of competing interests. Or limited resources. Or property rights. In asking, “What would you like to see here?”, we simply ask for a wish list that will never be adequately fulfilled.
We need to do better. We need to more effectively play the role of psychoanalyst, drilling down to information that’s actually useful: What kinds of things would residents like to be able to do? What problems would they like mitigated? What potential byproducts of change are they afraid of? How can your city better serve you?
These are the questions that lead to meaningful design criteria. Which is what breeds meaningful design.
Most people are not experts in design. But they are experts in their own lives. Understanding their wants, needs and concerns, and then addressing them through responsive, reality-based design, is ultimately what the public process should be set up to do.
What do you think? What techniques have you used to transcend the lip service of “What would you like to see here?”
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Mr. Doyon,
Thanks for exposing this sticker on a door “street art” scam for what it is- snake oil sold by a traveling circus of “experts” and their band of performers who set the tents, and scam the locals.
You call it inane, I call it kumbayanonics, or the Cult of 501c3ers .
They are handsomely paid entertainers who can guess the weight of your town’s elephant, but your still on the hook to feed it when they skip town, or that grant runs out.
Sorry to sound jaded, but as much as we were helped by the selfless, hardworking, and wonderful post Katrina (THANK YOU!!!), our pockets were also picked by an “Exploit us Right” circus.
Best from Freret Street Uptown NOLA- http://www.thenewfreret.com
Andy Brott
This makes me think of the eye doctor: Which lens looks better? Lens A… or Lens B? How about now? Lens B… or Lens C? The trick, I think, is to be able to present good options while still allowing real input.
Wow, while so incredibly simple that is one powerful analogy. Nicely stated and so true, Meika.
I agree. We call it, quite radically, p2p urbanism, and it’s the methodology we use when planning an alive place. Psychoterapy is the model, or, even better, Socrate’s maieutics: the art of asking and helping people to find their own reality, need, truth – that we don’t know in advance at all.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking people ‘what they want to see here.’ It’s okay for an opener. It’s compatible with all the good advice which follows in this article. I have a lot of experience in my own creation of preliminary floor plans for single-family homes. I started after collecting likes & dislikes of others’ plans. I use a dynamic approach to functions and spaces and stuff needed. Back to planning, to me it’s not planning unless I start with “bare ground” – as after a tornado. Still haven’t been allowed to start my work. Otherwise you’d have heard of me. Everything else is infill or change. Near where I live, there’s an abandoned property which needs to be torn down & replaced with something else. I’ve been involved in the discussions hosted by the local Alderman. Some neighbors want it all to be one use, while a developer has a much different plan. The Alderman likes my plan the best, and it has some academic support I quoted from a scholarly book, which the others don’t have. I made my plan as a local resident with pretty good education in the field. But formally, I’m still just a “nobody” with no resources to invest; so I don’t know what will happen. There’s still no $$ for demolition.
minor point: steve jobs didn’t invent the smartphone – the entire history of apple is basically taking what already exists and making it better and more consumer-friendly.
it’s more about realizing the potential for a certain idea and marketing it to the public in a way that people can understand and get behind. but you’re right that we really shouldn’t wait around for the public to tell us what they want – but there also has to be buy-in.
Loved this article! It’s not just about asking questions, it’s about asking the *right* questions.
This is incredibly important. To borrow from disruption expert Clayton Christensen, people don’t buy products,whether the product is a cell phone or a car or a downtown revitalization plan. Rather, they have a problem — a job they need done — and they hire a solution to the problem or a tool to do the job. So the right question becomes not “What would you like to see here?” but rather “What ‘job’ are you having trouble getting done and what would be a great solution?” There are hundreds of relevant ways to ask that question in context so that you get really insightful answers, but the first step is to identify the unmet need.
I like this post and the quote from Steve Jobs. Another quote from Henry Ford goes something like this, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said, ‘faster horses’.” I think the charrette process is a good tool for urban designers and planners who don’t know the area they are designing- it brings in a lot of information in a short time. But it is a cop out for Urban Designers often with masters degrees and years of experience to defer to amateurs whose only relevance is the location of their residence as having input of equal value. I don’t expect my physician to ask me or any of my relatives for advice on how to set a broken bone, or present me with three “equal” options ranging from ‘do nothing’ to use of the ‘latest greatest techniques.’ I’m not saying local input is not helpful since the more information professionals have the better prepared they are to synthesize it and generate the most optimal design. I am saying that doctors and urban designers are professionals because they are educated and trained in their fields of expertise and they should be better at their profession than random people in the neighborhood. They should accept input that makes sense and disregard faulty input. And I like the idea of asking what the problems are rather than what should go where.