What Rhymes With Orange?
How writing poetry makes you a better problem thinker and solver
What rhymes with orange?
Before I answer that question, I want to take you on a journey of how writing poetry can make you a better problem thinker and solver. I’ll be touching on my personal examples as a poet (by hobby) and as a product designer, though these parallels can more than likely be found in your own line of work as well, dear reader. The table of contents is as follows:
- Process / inspiration
- Audience & resonance
- Writing : building :: revising : iterating
- Communication
And with that, let’s dive in!
Process / Inspiration
Poetry
First things first: without having a process outlined or any source(s) of inspiration to draw from, everything else throughout this journey becomes exponentially more difficult, or falls apart entirely. With that, here is my general writing process:
- (un?)structured foundation
- write up a draft, self and peer edit
- revise or rewrite, edit (repeat as needed)
When I say “(un?)structured foundation,” I refer to the very title of this section. I refer to either being inspired by any person, place, or thing; or by having a set goal or target in mind with what to write. For example, I may approach a new poem knowing exactly what I want to make of it (a haiku, a limerick, a sonnet, etc.), and because these different structures have different rules, I have a sense of how and what words I’ll use to fill that structure. On the flip side, if I’m feeling emotional about something and want to channel that, I might write off of that emotion. Or I could be walking around the neighborhood and see something that suddenly inspires an idea or many, that “AHA!” moment. At that point I enter a state of flow and let the unconscious mind guide my writing (though it’s also possible this inspiration can lead one to develop a process to work off of).
Design
Looking at my ideal design process now (I use this phrase lightly, as different projects require different approaches, thus different processes; timeline, budget, and resources also play a role):
- Comparative UX and UI analyses
- Sketch and wireframe, test, refine
- HiFi mockups & prototyping, collab with engineers on development, test and revise (repeat as needed)
Before creating an entire design of a new or revamped product or service, it’s first important to have some context and best practices determined (e.g. hierarchy, button placement, menu interactions), and looking at other similar products can help either reinforce those practices or encourage me to take a different and more experimental approach. As I work on the designs, I want to be aware of developmental constraints such as technical capabilities or timelines so that my designs are grounded in realism (this will be explored more in topic #3). Based on that, and any testing and critiques, I go back, revise, retest, repeat as needed until the work is in a satisfactory state for development and launch.
For two very different bodies of work, there are striking similarities in the way they’re approached and completed. Here’s how writing and design overlap:
- Research and/or inspiration
- Creative exploration
- Revise and enhance
From activities like UX team vision-setting projects to design-dev hackathons to experimenting with different poetic styles and forms, utilizing various processes or letting yourself be inspired and embracing the chaos of flow state creation will expand your creative capacity, and as a result, strengthen your problem thinking-solving skills!
Audience & Resonance
Poetry
When I write, I keep two general questions in mind:
- Who do I write for? Myself? Someone specific? A target audience? Any audience?
- What becomes of the poem? Will it be read-only? Performed? Both?
When writing in English, we typically left-align everything. But unlike copy, stories, essays, or other longer forms of writing, there’s more leverage and creative freedom with poetry. You can play with whitespace, line breaks and separation, punctuation, word case, and more! I’ll use a poem I wrote a few years ago called “Oscillation” to illustrate what I mean.
The poem talks about the ups and downs of relationships we hold, hence the title. As I wrote out this piece, I kept thinking about what an oscillation literally looks like.
Keeping in mind that poetry isn’t bound by as many structural rules as more ‘traditional’ literature, I saw an opportunity to manipulate how I spaced out each line instead of keeping everything left-aligned. What if I structured the poem to look like an oscillation of sorts, moving down the page?
That one decision completely enhanced my audience’s experience engaging with this piece; they resonated more deeply with it as a result.
OK, what if my audience is more visually inclined and they like looking at images? I experimented with this approach for a time back in 2017 and 2018 by writing haiku based off of photos I took to post on Instagram (“Precipice” and “Look Up” earlier in this post were two such examples). Haiku are brief enough given the 5–7–5 structure, all while keeping my audience engaged with relevant imagery.
Design
In the context of my design work at an insurtech startup, who am I designing for? Is it insurance brokers? Is it for members that use the insurance? Is it our internal teams (and if so, which one(s))? What tools/methods are best for gathering research or insights? Who are the stakeholders to talk to? Without knowing who you will build for, how, and why, it doesn’t matter how good a product looks or functions; it will miss the mark entirely and make no impact at all; it won’t resonate with the target audience. Conversely, if you take time to flesh these things out, and especially test your concepts with the intended audience via usability testing, you might uncover many gems of insight you otherwise might not have considered. This leads us into…
Writing : building :: revising : iterating
You want to avoid tunnel vision and embrace collaboration. This applies as much to writing as it does to the work we all do (perhaps life in general). Outside perspectives shatter our unconscious conformity to our own thoughts and ideas. Almost always no project is perfect on the first try, and will require multiple passes. Thus, writing is to building as revising is to iterating.
Poetry
When I write, I have a tendency to double-, triple-, even quadruple-check my own work to identify errors or opportunities for improvement. At some point, however, it’s all too easy to get so into your own work that it’s hard to take a step back. That’s where peer editing and review comes in.
I wrote this poem some time back, and asked a close friend of mine whose literary expertise I trusted to tell me what they thought of it. I expected to receive some feedback around word usage and altering some punctuation, but instead they marked off 2/3 of the whole thing! I then did a quick poll of these two versions of the same poem, and found that the shorter version had greater impact. I would never have considered this if I had kept revisiting this piece by myself.
Design
Similarly, when it comes to design, we always want to know how we might be able to improve certain interactions, maybe an entire flow? Or maybe where certain elements are placed. And that’s why I alluded earlier to usability testing with your audience when possible. One of my first design projects at my company involved revamping the dentist search experience; needless to say, it underwent quite a few iterations (the Figma file has at least 10 pages!) before it was in a satisfactory state.
The ultimate goal, whether writing or designing, is upskilling through collaboration and peer-reviewing.
Avoid tunnel vision, embrace collaboration!
Communication
No matter what you work on, communication is a universal must (whether at a poetry slam, an all-hands, a stakeholder session, or a company expo where I gave this very talk). It’s the bridge to sharing your story, your thoughts and ideas, your process, your plans and next steps.
Poetry
Throughout the entire experience of writing and revising poetry, here are some things I think of:
- what words, syllables, and/or lines do I want to emphasize?
- How loud or how quietly do I speak if I’m performing this?
- How fast or how slow do I want the pacing to feel?
- When and where do I apply line breaks?
- What do I want certain types of punctuation and capitalization to mean in what places and contexts?
Factoring all these considerations changes the overall story being told, which then alters the way it’s being communicated, and ultimately the impact it’s meant to have.
Design
As for design, You want to clearly demonstrate your thought process (sketches, what decisions you made, why), as well as how the design would ideally work (e.g. mockups and prototype). You want to sell the story of the experience you’re demonstrating. Walking the stakeholders involved through how a member of the target audience gets from point A to point E and demonstrating that experience creates buy-in. If the stakeholders buy into your proposed solution, that reinforces its validity for the user experience and for business goals as well.
Conclusion
Poetry and product go hand-in-hand, from establishing a start point to understanding your target audience to the literal act of creating to putting your work out there.
For those more interested in poetry and poetics, I highly recommend On Poetry by Glyn Maxwell. While it isn’t a very easy read (it can be dense at times and there are multiple tangents), it was an enriching reading experience.
And lastly…what actually rhymes with orange?! The answer is (not Eminem’s famous interview, but)…
- Sporange: technical terms for a case, sack, or structure in a plant that houses and produces spores (this rhymes in sound and spelling)
- Blorenge: A prominent hill overlooking the River Usk in southeast Wales (rhymes only in sound)
Now if anyone says nothing rhymes with orange, you can prove them wrong. 😊
Thank you, dear reader, and I hope you found value in this post. What do you draw inspiration from to solve problems? What parallels do you see in your own hobbies or passions? I love hearing people’s stories and having a hearty conversation about life, UX, food, anime, Star Wars, and many many things in between! Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter. Cheers :)
