🔍I recently got a word called "knowledge curse". Sometimes, our expertise becomes a barrier to communication, such as when designers are deeply trapped in the maze of user behavior, they forget that people outside the door may still be looking for the entrance. This phenomenon hinders effective communication, especially in interdisciplinary collaboration.
💡Imagine that you discovered those seemingly abnormal behaviors in user testing and are excited to share them, but the team's reaction is like listening to a foreign book. This is the knowledge curse quietly working. When we are too immersed in the professional field, we often forget to express it in a way that ordinary people can understand.
💡The solution is to "translate" your expertise. Replace terminology with stories and replace complex processes with intuitive diagrams. For example, don't say "information architecture", say "how to make users navigate your product as easily as walking in the park".
🏆Next time you feel that the team is not sensitive to your insights, don't forget that effective communication is more important than expertise itself.
💡The essence of the knowledge curse is information asymmetry, which limits the potential for innovation. In the fast-paced future, everyone needs to have an interdisciplinary perspective in addition to being proficient in their own profession. For example, a traditional designer combines data science, artificial intelligence (AI) and user experience (UX), and needs to be able to explain complex technical concepts in the language of non-technical people. 🌐Imagine that a designer is trying to integrate AI technology into product design. If he or she cannot effectively explain how machine learning can improve the user experience, the team may not fully understand and accept the idea. Therefore, designers need to learn to "translate" technical terms into intuitive stories and visual expressions.
🛠️In fact, having interdisciplinary capabilities is also a way to break the curse of knowledge.
🌱The key to interdisciplinary cooperation lies in empathy and communication. Jump out of your comfort zone and learn the basics of other fields to better communicate with engineers, product managers and even marketers. It is also easier to jointly build more humane, intelligent and innovative products and services.
🔻Finally,
▪️Whenever you think "Why don't they understand?", it's time to change your perspective and communicate in a more down-to-earth way.
▪️Design is to connect people, not isolate them.
▪️Everyone should have “design ability”, not just designers.