Designing Redundant Systems
I’ve been producing a few shoots for Facebook ads for brands recently. The deliverables on these are huge–often 75-100 unique video assets. All of these assets are very similar, but variate slightly with different on-screen text. The good news with these is that we don’t have to come up with 75 completely unique concepts for each video. They’re almost identical except for the copy we’re split testing. The bad news is that if we make one mistake, it usually gets applied to all 75 assets. Then we have to fix and re-export each one.
Designing systems with redundancy is the key to eliminating these errors so we can save time on revisions and get back to our lives. It’s counter-intuitive, but if we want to be more accurate, we have to assume that we aren’t accurate. When I work with an editor on these projects, I hold the copy manuscript right next to the screen, comparing what I’ve written to the exported file.
There’s a chance for human error in any task that humans do. When we realize this, and admit it to ourselves, we can begin to design systems that reduce errors and increase output. So we can get back to living our lives.
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