Contours of Knowledge

Are you ignorant? Would you know if you were?

One reason I have a continuing passion for games is that they combine many of my interests. Digital and oil painting. Graphic design, information theory and architecture. Software development. Human-Computer interaction. Fiction and non-fiction writing. Math. Ancient cultures and philosophy. Music.

What does a person with such wide varied interests do? Why, make games of course!

But the same diversity that pulls me in, can also be overwhelming. Studies say that 10,000 hours of concentrated practice in a field is required before a person can become an expert. This rings true to my experience. There are certain fields in which I am an expert, and others that I only dabble in.

Levels of Knowledge

1. Total Ignorance. You might not even be aware of this body of knowledge, or if you are, only in a vague sense. My article on Text Fonts was an attempt to lift people from this state about typography.
2. Ignorant Incompetence. You know enough about the field to believe you are competent, but not enough about it to realize how far you have to go. It’s a wise policy to always assume you’re in this state, and always try to be getting out of this state.
3. Knowledgeable Incompetence. You know enough now to know what you don’t know. You know the right questions to ask experts, and you know when you should let someone else do the work. You can now recognize an expert when you see one.
4. Competence. You are good enough to tackle most tasks in the field. You often need guidance, but you understand the guideance in context once it’s provided. Your work is generally of acceptable quality.
5. Expertise. You know the field intuitively, can provide thoughtful advice to others about it. Your work in the field stands as an example to others.

Achieve Incompetence

When you tackle a field like games, which is actually a combination of many fields of knowledge, it becomes imperative that you at least be aware of your level of knowledge on a given subject. You don’t need to be an expert at everything. You do need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses so you can form a realistic sense of the quality of your game’s various aspects.

The really dangerous area of knowledge is total ignorance. If you don’t realize there is even knowledge to be had, then you will undoubtedly muck up whatever you’re working on. If you are responsible for the user interface of your game, but you don’t know what a grid system is, you are somewhere between Totally Ignorant and Ignorantly Incompetent. The goal is to reach the level of knowledge in which you realize how bad you are, and can recognize good work.

Some areas are trickier than others. People are readily aware of sucking at art, but how many people are sure they can recognize good art when they see it? Aware that they suck, they may ask for help and get help… that also sucks. Knowledgeably Incompetent people have it better, able to ask for the right help from the right people.

If a particular field doesn’t grab you, you’re unlikely to breach this level. To become competent requires around 5,000 hours of practice. That’s 3 to 5 years of continual effort. Only passion can drag you through this territory because this phase in particular is quite painful: you are aware of how much you suck and how sub par your work is, and yet you keep trying for years until finally you hit something you like more often than not. It’s quite the challenge.

To be a great game director, you must be at least Knowledgeably Incompetent in every discipline required to produce your game. When you achieve that you will not have the requisite knowledge to actually produce a top-notch game, but you will know the contour of the relevant knowledge, so you can ask the right questions of the right people to make your game sparkle.

Self Assessment

So ask yourself, as you work on your game, how much you really know. If you find yourself tackling projects thinking, “Bah, how hard could it be?” then you probably have a lot to learn to achieve Knowledgeable Ignorance, and that’s your cue to stop what you’re doing and start asking questions.

The most difficult areas are those that you never think of, so be on the look out for critiques you don’t understand. If it never occurred to you to pay attention to the type face you use, start asking questions about type. If you never read about what makes an interface successful, start asking questions about information architecture and human-computer interaction. If you don’t know squat about music except what you like, don’t just cruise the web for free midis! Ask someone who knows what they are doing to help you!

Never get too comfortable because when you scale one mountain of knowledge, you often just find the next range that you couldn’t even see before. Good luck!

Edit: A reader reminded me of a great paper by Justin Kruger and David Dunning of Cornell University called “Unskilled and Unaware of It.” It’s closely related to this article, and quite eye opening. I recommend it!

Read “Unskilled and Unaware of It.”

1. 

   TheUltimateJosh says:

   August 26, 2009 at 12:05 pm

   That’s a very nice article, definitely bookmarked, definitely helpful.
2. 

   Spaceoff says:

   August 27, 2009 at 5:45 am

   That was an interesting read.
   Unfortunately, rather accurate… and humorous :D
3. 

   ryan says:

   January 12, 2010 at 4:46 am

   Nice read. I just finished Outliers and it covers a lot of this territory. I’m working on being competent as a designer and I have no idea where I am as a musician/composer probably competent. All those shut-in weekends are starting to become fruitful at last! :)