Introduction

In the world of product design, good designers bring a real sense of embodiment to their work. While technology design is often considered intellectual work, being present in your body is integral to the creative process. An entire scientific field is dedicated to this – “embodied cognition” – which studies how our physical engagement with the world influences our thinking and creativity.

As you think through problems, get up from your desk, move around, physically manipulate objects – or go for a walk. By changing how our bodies relate to our environments from moment to moment, we access cognitive resources and problem-solving capabilities that we can’t get to any other way.

Embodied cognition is critical to the creative process because it allows us to move beyond the confines of intellectual work and engage with the world on a physical level. Through physical engagement, we can access cognitive resources and problem-solving capabilities that we can’t get to any other way. By being present in our bodies, we can fully engage with our environments and tap into our creativity in a way that is impossible through pure intellectual work.

In the following sections, we will explore how embodied cognition influences the creative process, how physical engagement can benefit designers, and how self-awareness and intuition play a role in the design critique process.

Embodied Cognition and the Creative Process

Designers tend to be visual thinkers, so we create visual artifacts such as slide shows, presentation decks, wireframes, and mockups. These visual tools allow us to play with ideas, give them shape and color, and manipulate and transform them in our mind’s eye. However, by moving beyond the simple visual, by creating and working with physical artifacts, we can engage the visual systems and the motor-sensory system, literally feeling our way through the problem even if we are still working at the level of abstract ideas.

In addition to creating physical artifacts, another way that embodied cognition manifests in the creative process is by changing up our stimuli. For example, standing instead of sitting, walking, or getting out of the office. When we change our stimuli, we change our thinking, which changes our access to the “adjacent possible.” The adjacent possible refers to the set of all possible next steps or ideas one step away from our current state. By changing our environment, we can expand our access to these adjacent possibilities and find new solutions and ideas.

By embracing embodied cognition, designers can tap into their full creative potential. Engaging with the physical world, creating physical artifacts, and changing our stimuli allow us to access new cognitive resources and problem-solving capabilities essential for developing innovative and practical designs. In the next section, we will discuss the importance of self-awareness in the design process.

Self-Awareness and Embodied Cognition

Being present in our bodies is crucial to the creative process, and to achieve this, we need to be present with ourselves and aware of what’s going on with ourselves from moment to moment. Physical self-awareness can range from simply knowing when it’s time to turn up the room’s heat to when it’s time to go to the bathroom. By paying attention to our bodies, we can become more aware of what we physically need to do our best work.

For instance, some of us may know that our peak creative time is first thing in the morning after a croissant and coffee. Others may function best in the middle of the afternoon when the sun is out, and they’ve been able to work and get momentum going. And some of us may find that we work best in the middle of the night while the world sleeps. By understanding what works for us and our bodies, we can create patterns in our lives that are optimized for our creativity.

If we aren’t paying attention to our bodies, we may also miss the cues that our bodies give us in the creative process when ideas resonate with us. Tuning into these bodily sensations and reactions can provide essential clues about what resonates with us and what doesn’t. We can optimize our creative output and produce better designs by paying attention to these subtle signals.

Tuning into Intuition

The development of creative instinct means tuning into intuition. The responses from the unconscious mind are transmitted to us through bodily sensations. The unconscious mind works more quickly than the conscious mind, processing input and responding to information in a fraction of the time it takes the conscious mind to respond.

As mentioned earlier, we receive intuitive messages from the unconscious mind as bodily sensations such as butterflies in your stomach, your heart skipping a beat or a shiver down your spine. These sensations are subtle ways in which our unconscious mind gives clues about what is being processed. There is a sense of energy when you start moving toward the right solution in the creative process. We can feel it in our bodies if we can stay connected to it.

If we bring a sense of connection and intuition into the design critique process, we can notice how we respond to ideas. Do we start fidgeting in our chairs as we discuss an idea? Are people leaning in? Are we feeling physically withdrawn? All of these things tell us what resonates with an idea for us.

At the end of the design process, we can always backtrack and fill in with a rational explanation for why the design works. However, if we listen to what our bodies tell us and follow our intuition, we can make more intuitive leaps and broaden our access to the adjacent possible. By tuning into our intuition, we can create better products and designs that truly resonate with our users.

Conclusion

Incorporating the principles of embodied cognition into the product design process can lead to more creative and effective solutions. By being present in our bodies and engaging with the physical world, we can access cognitive resources and problem-solving capabilities that we cannot get to any other way.

Designers can move beyond their typical visual thinking and create physical artifacts to engage the visual and motor-sensory systems. Changing up stimuli and environment can also change thinking and access to the “adjacent possible.”

Self-awareness is also crucial for being present in our bodies and understanding what we need physically to do our best work. By creating patterns in our lives that are optimized for our optimal personal creativity, we can pay attention to the cues that the body gives us in the creative process when ideas resonate with us.

Finally, tuning into our intuition and bodily sensations can help us make intuitive leaps and broaden our access to the adjacent possible. We can create designs that truly resonate with our users by bringing a sense of connection and intuition into the design critique process.

In summary, incorporating embodied cognition into the product design process can lead to better products that truly meet the needs of our users. By unleashing our creativity and paying attention to our bodies and intuition, we can design products that make a real difference.