Design Practice: Being Confident: Research

We initially had to get into groups, then we where given a theme. Ours was being confident, we then had to come up with different directions for this theme, and then pick one.

Mine was

Confident Public Speaking

And so initially I began to look at famous public speakers, who had famous speeches, past and present...

I looked at there methods and tactics, and also how they came across as confident speakers.

http://compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/1-public-speaking-lessons-from-martin-luther-king/

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

There are 12 key communication lessons we can learn from Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream Speech”:

1) set the scene (I think he used every sense but taste)

2) paint emotional pictures

3) inspire. paint a vision of the future.

4) use repetition and parallelism (including alliteration)

5) leverage contrast (and juxtaposition) in images, emotions, and ideologies. (and actions–what not to do)

6) use cultural, historical, and literary references (MLK happened to use the Bible and historical documents)

7) almost always use a problem-solution framework

8] use ethos, pathos, and logos

9) use silence and pauses appropriately

10) use your stage (set in Washington DC between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial–perhaps no more salient historically point in American history)

11) pick a theme (and wrap your metaphors, analogies, and rhetoric around it)

12) use clarity (and emotion) to connect.

Phrasing: Another fabulous example would be JFK’s use of carefully crafted language to reach his audience when he gave his famous Inaugural Address in 1961. He included an extremely artistic paring of phrases when he said “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” This short, yet elegant and powerful phrase is another example of a potent skill that can transform an audience.

Confidence: Our final example by Martin Luther King displays the importance of confidence when delivering a public oration. You need to whole heartedly believe in the ideas and help remove all doubts in order to get the audience to rally behind you as a leader. Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech demonstrated his confidence as he delivered his message with his heart to rally supporters to the cause of the Civil Rights movement.

freedom (20 times)

we (30 times), our (17 times), you (8 times)

nation (10 times), america (5 times), american (4 times)

justice (8 times) and injustice (3 times)

dream (11 times)

Obama

What should our politicians learn from Mr Obama? They can start by listening to the sound-map of Mr Obama's voice and take note of his resonance, speech manner, his adroit sense of timing and musical presentation of his voice. His speech virtues begin with a combination of accurate and crisp articulation, beautifully timed speech rate and commanding presence. He has license and he willingly uses it. He is able to infuse passion into his speech and while he is understated, he does have remnants of speech gifts learned from preachers. Yet he never seems to over-do the passion.

He has control over his emotional range and the intensity in his voice can be raised or lowered at will. His voice is powerful enough to maintain a consistent volume setting and he applies his vocal power very cleverly; rather than using it to over-power he uses its foundation to hold up his voice and buy him space. This is where his multi-tonal resonance is evident; Obama's resonant voice is very listenable. His vocal strength and energy is easily detectible - he wastes very little. It is evident that during long and loud speeches he doesn't easily get hoarse as most people would. This suggests that he's well practiced at exercising his vocals without misusing them.

His speech manner is highlighted by many qualities - it has style and panache, can be warm when required, and he easily steps into his statesman-like mode. He is confident and relaxed with his personality and appears to be as natural as you can be in public. Telltale signs are that his facial muscles are usually relaxed and his movements are slow. He uses body language well and connects with his audience. He doesn't freeze into one position as many others do. His presentation exterior seems not to be false, nor retentive and the projection of both his personality and volume are measured yet natural. He is remarkably mostly free of yips. His presence is commanding - even when he's listening. He is a master of emphasis. He often starts his sentences quite slowly then quickens up as he sifts through detail, then strategically slows his speech rate to emphasise strategic points. In circumstances when others get macho, shrill and mad he gets serious and clear; he treats his listeners with respect. Listening to him is like listening to music, he is brilliant at using melody to enforce a point. His speech tune leads to crescendos that finish his points well. He makes it easy to anticipate when he will finish his sentences and for interactive audiences to time their applause. His spoken manner routinely applies a concluding flourish just before he finishes his point - creating a 'personality echo' He stylistically completes his sentences with downward inflections and emphatic closure; this is emblematic of his Southern American speech manner.

Yet Obama's speech skills extend beyond his delivery. He is highly articulate - he has a good mental library of words and his memory enables him to access the right words when required. His attention to detail is incisive. His judgment skills appear to be very good and he clearly has outstanding expression. He is very able at expressing his intent and expressing words that efficiently describe his message. He responds well under pressure, is able to rise to the occasion and doesn't lose the plot in the spotlight. He is very good at situation analysis - he can modulate and make incremental changes to his voice and adjust to suit. He is a quick thinker and a fluent speaker - and somehow doesn't come across as heavy.

Then online I looked at tips into being a more confident public speaker

How to be a more confident public speaker

When rehearsing, practice speaking to the room as if the audience were in front of you. You wouldn't stop half way through and ask to start again in front of an audience, right? Under pressure, how you practice is how you'll perform.

Avoid the temptation to speak in front of a mirror or a video camera (it's distracting) and instead focus your energy on what it feels like to present in the moment. 

Practice speaking with your friend(s) or your parents. 

Prepare a good plan of speaking. There should be:

An opening

3 good middle points;

a summary (conclusion)

Don't try to speak on too many issues. In addition, don't wander off the topic. 

Think carefully before you talk. Use silence; it can be a great ally and cause the audience to hang off your next words, wondering what you are about to say. Don't be intimidated by silent moments. 

Practice a lot beforehand. If it's for a presentation or a speech, the more you practice it, the more it will take on a life of its own and feel more comfortable to deliver. 

Concentrate on one person. Maybe practice in front of them, so that it feels like you're just talking to them. 

Connect with your audience. Use feelings and gestures to intensify a point. Just don't overdo the gestures or emotion - a little goes a long way. 

Don't look directly into people's eyes. Focus on their foreheads or on a place at the back of the audience, just above the heads in the audience. That way you won't feel distracted. 

Let go of assumptions. Just because an audience is not smiling or nodding in agreement does not mean they aren't listening or feeling positive about your talk. People often do not display encouragement on their faces in an audience situation, so don't seek it. You'll know from the applause level at the end how well you went and by then, the speech is over! 

Never get confused. Try to speak fluently. 

Speaking fluently encourages you that you are doing all right.

Quickly, some of the benefits you can get from making a public presentation include:

Broadening your potential client base

Establishing yourself as an expert

Be seen as more human and more “approachable”

Giving customers the chance to ask question

Getting additional publicity for your freelance business

Do your homework. There’s nothing worse than hearing a speaker who hasn’t done enough research into the topic that he or she is covering. Make sure that there is adequate time before your presentation for you to properly prepare.

Organize. Your presentation should have a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion. Don’t try to present too much information all at once. Focus on the most important points that you would like to get across.

Practice. Don’t go into a presentation without giving it a trial run. If you can, grab a family member and do several trial runs of your speech. If you can’t find anyone to listen to you practice, then practice in front of the mirror.

Take notes. But, don’t read from them. You’ll want to have notes and an outline with you to refer to as you make your presentation, but remember that it’s also important to make eye contact with various members of your audience.

Use visual aides. PowerPoint, handouts, and other visual aides can be the speaker’s best friend. They can help clarify your points and provide additional information. (They will also give the audience something to focus on besides you.)  

Anticipate questions. One of the benefits to giving a live presentation is the ability to clear up any misunderstandings about your topic. One way to do that is to allow questions. Be prepared with answers to questions that your listeners will most likely ask.

Ask about the facility. Find out about facility limitations in advance. Will there be a microphone? Is there a projector available for your PowerPoint presentation? Know how many minutes you have to speak and plan your speech accordingly.

Look the part. As a freelancer I work in jeans or sweats, but I would never show up dressed that way to make a presentation. Find out what the typical dress is for the group that you will be speaking to and dress accordingly.

Your audience is human too. They really are. In most cases they won’t notice if you make a mistake. Or, if they do notice, they’ll probably forget it quickly. They wouldn’t have asked you to speak if they didn’t want to hear what you have to say.

Breathe. Remember to take a breath between sentences. Don’t speak too rapidly. Make sure that your audience can hear you. If you’re not sure whether everyone can hear you, ask. Don’t be afraid to pause.

I then found a blog about being a more confident designer and being confident in your design process.

I feel that this is more relevant to me and I liked the direction it was going.

Designing in the open

Ryan wrote this on May 25 2011 / 44 comments

There’s a phase we go through in our maturity as designers. At first we don’t have a lot of confidence in our process, so we hide while we work. We take feedback from directors, programmers, customers, and say “Ok let me go away and work on that and I’ll get back to you.” Then we go away for a few days or a week and monkey around with our mysterious process until we feel good enough to show something again. We don’t like to show things that are still in progress. If somebody checks in we say “I’m still experimenting with a few things.” We design in secret.
When we get more confident a new phase opens up. We believe more in our process and we know that things are never perfect. So we start showing work earlier and start talking about our rationale at a given step. We’re excited for feedback on a clumsy design because we know feedback will steer us to a better one. We might even be unafraid to open our tools and do some real work in real time in front of people. This is designing in the open.
Is there anything we can do to speed the transition from designing in secret to designing in the open? My experience is yes, it can happen with a little help from the outside. Whoever is managing the project or directing it can ask for smaller, more frequent steps.
Instead of asking for 10 changes and waiting a week, you can ask for 1 change and wait 15 minutes. Evaluate the change, praise it or identify weaknesses, and suggest the next change. By asking for small changes, you take the pressure off the designer because you aren’t asking for miracles. You also take the pressure off the review process because the set of constraints and motivating concerns is smaller. The design is easier to talk about because there are a fewer factors involved.
By working hand in hand, reviewing small changes as they are made, designers gain confidence and learn to expose their process. And this technique is no training wheel. The better a designer is, the more open they are to discussing small changes and getting feedback. It’s a virtuous cycle leading out of secrecy and into productive openness.
Update: Pixar President Ed Catmull makes the same point in this quote on getting over embarrassment.

Getting over embarrassment in order to get things done

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Peter Uchytil, Product Marketing Manager

The process that Pixar adopted for Toy Story, as explained by Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation Studios, is very similar to the process of “share early, share often” that we advocate for prototyping with ProtoShare:

In the process of making the film, we reviewed the material every day. Now this is counter-intuitive for a lot of people. Most people—imagine this: you can’t draw very well, but even if you can draw very well, suppose you come in and you’ve got to put together animation or drawings and show it to a world-class, famous animator. Well, you don’t want to show something that is weak, or poor, so you want to hold off until you get it right. And the trick is to actually stop that behavior. We show it every day, when it’s incomplete. If everybody does it, every day, then you get over the embarrassment. And when you get over the embarrassment, you’re more creative.

As I say, that’s not obvious to people, but starting down that path helped everything we did. Show it in its incomplete form. There’s another advantage and that is, when you’re done, you’re done. That might seem silly, except a lot of people work on something and they want to hold it and want to show it, say two weeks later, to get done. Only it’s never right. So they’re not done. So you need to go through this iterative process, and the trick was to do it more frequently to change the dynamics.

Source video (quoted section starts at 6:10):

http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/improve-your-confidence/

How to Improve Your Confidence as a Designer

Being confident in your work is not always an easy thing to do, especially where anything creative is involvedThe trick is to find a small measure of confidence and build from there.

Don’t Compare Yourself to the Best

It’s natural for us to compare our work to the work we want to create, but it comes with a price. You’re not supposed to be as good as the best when first starting so don’t let it get you down if your work isn’t as good as the work of your favorite designers.

Instead compare yourself to yourself. Are you doing better work today than you were 6 months ago? A year ago? Absorb the work of others to help yourself grow, but compare yourself only to yourself.

Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses

If you lack confidence there’s a reason why. You’re likely focusing on the things you don’t do well. Focus instead on the things you can do well.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Realize there are things you do well and take some confidence from them. Realize too there are things you need to work at and improve.

For me a strength was something as simple as trusting my eye. Perhaps I couldn’t create designs to make the world say wow, but I could at least see wow in the works of others and see that I wasn’t delivering it myself.

It might not seem like much, but it was enough to give me the confidence to keep at it.

Sharing Your Strengths

You have some strengths so play to them. Maybe you’re skills working with type aren’t great, but you’re good working with color. Maybe all you think you can do well is see the good in the work of others. Share that.

Share any aspect where you do feel some confidence and enter the process of designing in the open.

Improve Your Weaknesses

It’s normal to be hesitant in sharing things we don’t do well. Identify one weaknesses and work to improve it.

Do you struggle with color? Learn more about how others work with color. Study sites you like. Grab some books and learn the theory behind color. Find techniques others use for creating color schemes.

Choose one aspect of design to study and dive in.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Learning the theory is only one part of the equation. You need to practice the theory. Take that technique you learned for creating a color scheme and use it on your next project.

You have to practice in order to improve. I always strive to practice something new with each new site. I may have to fall back on something I know will work in order to get the job done, but not until after I’ve given something new a try.

Start Sharing More

As you gain more knowledge and experience with one aspect of design share more of that aspect. If you’re not yet ready to show your work write about it instead. Tell others what you’re doing and what’s working and what’s not working.

Create a simple demo showing how you approached the problem. You don’t have to share real projects to enter the process. Share what you can in any way you can.

Often on this blog I choose a subject I don’t know much about. Like most I’d prefer not to embarrass myself publicly so I put more into the learning and work harder so I can hopefully write something intelligently about the subject.

Be Open to Feedback

As you share more you’ll get more feedback both good and bad. You can’t selectively listen to only the good or only the bad. Listen to it all. Don’t let the good go to your head and don’t let the bad get you down.

When you disagree with a critique move on. When you think someone may be right explore deeper what they said and what you can learn from it.

Ultimately you have to decide the value of any feedback you receive, but to do that you need to be open to receiving it.

Offer Feedback to Others

A number of years ago I took a writing course where students would spend time critiquing each other’s work. Most thought the value was in the feedback they received. I found more value in offering feedback to others.

Instead of offering a few quick thoughts I would dig deep into what they wrote and offered opinions on how I thought they could improve their work.

Whether or not people listened to my feedback was irrelevant to my growth. I found that in critically thinking how to improve the work or others I was greatly learning to improve my own work as well.

Rinse and Repeat

You can never stop learning and improving. Even the best among us have more to learn and room for growth. Continue to identify areas for improvement and areas of strengths and keep sharing both as you feel comfortable.

Objectively listen to the feedback you receive and let it help you grow.

I know I’m making the above sound easier than it really is, but it does work. Each small step you take leads you closer to your greater goal. In time you’ll feel more confident about more of your process and you’ll find yourself less hesitant to share in general.

Summary

All creative people struggle with confidence at times. It’s the nature of doing work where the quality of results is part subjective.

It’s not just you or me. It happens to all of us. It leads many to hide their design process and work in secret, which only feeds into the lack of confidence you feel.

The more we design in the open, the more we’re willing to share and open ourselves to feedback, the better we get and the more confidence we gain.

You don’t need to share everything at once, but the sooner you enter the designing in the open process, the quicker you’ll improve as a designer.

Also know that while this post has specifically focused on design the ideas above can be applied to anything in your life where you lack confidence and want to improve.

Primary Research

I went around the college taking photographs of any processes involved in the design process, or a design process.

I then asked people to name key words that describe the design process

I then asked people to rate out of 0-10 (poor-excellent) how confident they are in the design process, mainly people said 6 so just over an average rating, which to me tells me people aren't entirely confident in their design process.

Primary Mood board

Secondary Mood board

Direction Mood board
I have decided from my research want to focus on the question
How to be more confident as a designer and within your design process.

However after consideration I should of included the work of others that have tried to be encouraging confidence in other designers and so I have added this kind of work below.