Taking some time away from a project is a valuable way to be able to experience it for the first time – even though you’ve already seen it a thousand times. Say hello to the concept “Vuja De”.
We all know the concept “deja vu”. The feeling of having been in this exact situation before. We all know the concept “deja vu”. The feeling of having been in this exact situation before.
And with this corny attempt to simulate deja vu in the intro, we would like to introduce you to the concept’s twin: “Vuja De”.
The idea behind “Vuja de”: You enter a situation you’ve been in many times before, but feel like you have never been there before. You have a sense of experiencing it for the first time.
Alongside incubation – which we wrote about earlier – the concept can be a powerful tool in product development.
The Vuja De-magic is hard to force
You have probably experienced Vuja De yourself without knowing the name of the concept. E.g. after a nice vacation. You return to your apartment after three weeks on a beach somewhere, and all of a sudden your home feel weirdly alien and fresh.
As you might have guessed, the ‘vuja de’ is enormously valuable when you’re striving to invent a new concept or product for the market.
Your initial thought, gut feeling or eureka-moment for a new idea is often what becomes the driver for the whole project. But as you dive into the subject, as you gain more knowledge on the solution and the market, you might lose the connection to the initial idea. And in the worst case, this means the magic behind the concept gets lost in translation for the actual users, who have never seen the product or concept before.
For that reason, we’re continuously hunting those vuja de-moments at certain stages in our product development. We always see it working after extended periods away: All of a sudden a design challenge solves itself or a crucially needed add-on seems obvious. The initial gut feeling is back and it’s running the show.
We try to remind ourselves of the power of seeing the project with fresh eyes. One of the ways to simulate the vuja de is switching between different products. That being said, we’re far from being able to force a vuja de, when it’s most needed, but we’re trying to systematize it and search for the perfect formula.
