Project manager: how to make friends with a designer and not lose a client (or investor)
Until recently, I usually had to develop applications to my own taste. This was due to the fact that in 1C: Enterprise there is not a very large selection of design solutions. True, there is a wide scope in deciding what will be on the form, what will not be, in what sequence to place the elements and how no one has put them together.
And so I became a startup. Began to develop an application for iOS, an application for Flex, and another specialized social network. And then it turned out that my taste is rather acidic, I love “pluck out my eyes,” and clients do not like it. I had to look for a designer.
The first models received from the designer revealed the first problems. I do not really like low contrast solutions in pastel colors. Although just the customers they were to taste. I do not like a primitive, all the time something was missing for me, some kind of chips, some kind of my own face.
')
But it was not the main thing. The main thing was that my design ideas were too specific. I wanted a specific user interaction model, far from ideal, just familiar to me.
It turned out that I do not know how to do technical tasks, on the basis of which I could get the expected result. Amazing. I easily overloaded TZ with details, but did not pay attention to the main thing. What exactly the user needs to do and in what order.
A year of working with a designer taught me not to interfere too much with ergonomics and usability, and to pay more attention to users.
I still do not know how to make a technical task that a designer can read from the first time, understand and not overlap. But I am already beginning to understand why you should beat your hands and why beat yourself with a stick lower back.
These are some of the conclusions drawn over the past year.
1. You need to start with the understanding of the user and his environment, in which he will have to work. If this application is for mobile phone, you need to understand in which case the user will get the phone and in what conditions he will do it. Understanding the environment can be avoided many design stamps "from architecture"
2. Describe the requirements to start with the most general context. Here I got the phone. Or: I went to the site. Or: I launched the program. The most general context is often wider than it appears on the basis of the “main intent of the application”.
3. Thinking through more and more detailed user scenarios one should always remember the context from which the user comes to the described action. The transition from a more general context to a more specific one is almost always accompanied by very specific links with the general context. To fit a window into a window, keeping the general context, as well as replacing the whole general form with a specific one, is often an unsatisfactory pattern of behavior.
4. It is best not to try to immediately simulate a certain common interface. But describing the nesting of contexts, we give the designer a good basis for design. The result is more mature and less overloaded with familiar patterns.
5. It's nice to have an idea about applications that are aesthetically or functionally pleasing, but it is extremely difficult to express exactly what you like. It is better to immediately lay the time for several iterations, until it develops exactly what you want.
6. Most likely, the best design will not be formed the first time. It will develop, most likely, from unknown times. Moreover, when it develops, it still will not seem to be the best. There will be a few more attempts until awareness comes.
Well, the general conclusion. Do not rush to show the customer prototypes. It is better to pay more attention to the scenarios of user interaction with the system, roles, rights, expectations. Let the customer himself say that he wants to see what he likes. Immature sentences “let it be like on Twitter” often lead to false agreement.
I'm a fairly novice manager for projects that do not use a ready-made platform with a hard design. For the first time, I have to link up hundreds of potential users, a designer, a web developer, a developer of services and a database. Well, more precisely, "again." The first project has already been completed to the finish line and the first lessons have been learned.
Hopefully, the findings will be useful for beginners and continuing managers in what to expect from communicating with the first-time hired designer and the development team beginning to take shape.
And so I became a startup. Began to develop an application for iOS, an application for Flex, and another specialized social network. And then it turned out that my taste is rather acidic, I love “pluck out my eyes,” and clients do not like it. I had to look for a designer.
The first models received from the designer revealed the first problems. I do not really like low contrast solutions in pastel colors. Although just the customers they were to taste. I do not like a primitive, all the time something was missing for me, some kind of chips, some kind of my own face.
')
But it was not the main thing. The main thing was that my design ideas were too specific. I wanted a specific user interaction model, far from ideal, just familiar to me.
It turned out that I do not know how to do technical tasks, on the basis of which I could get the expected result. Amazing. I easily overloaded TZ with details, but did not pay attention to the main thing. What exactly the user needs to do and in what order.
A year of working with a designer taught me not to interfere too much with ergonomics and usability, and to pay more attention to users.
I still do not know how to make a technical task that a designer can read from the first time, understand and not overlap. But I am already beginning to understand why you should beat your hands and why beat yourself with a stick lower back.
These are some of the conclusions drawn over the past year.
1. You need to start with the understanding of the user and his environment, in which he will have to work. If this application is for mobile phone, you need to understand in which case the user will get the phone and in what conditions he will do it. Understanding the environment can be avoided many design stamps "from architecture"
2. Describe the requirements to start with the most general context. Here I got the phone. Or: I went to the site. Or: I launched the program. The most general context is often wider than it appears on the basis of the “main intent of the application”.
3. Thinking through more and more detailed user scenarios one should always remember the context from which the user comes to the described action. The transition from a more general context to a more specific one is almost always accompanied by very specific links with the general context. To fit a window into a window, keeping the general context, as well as replacing the whole general form with a specific one, is often an unsatisfactory pattern of behavior.
4. It is best not to try to immediately simulate a certain common interface. But describing the nesting of contexts, we give the designer a good basis for design. The result is more mature and less overloaded with familiar patterns.
5. It's nice to have an idea about applications that are aesthetically or functionally pleasing, but it is extremely difficult to express exactly what you like. It is better to immediately lay the time for several iterations, until it develops exactly what you want.
6. Most likely, the best design will not be formed the first time. It will develop, most likely, from unknown times. Moreover, when it develops, it still will not seem to be the best. There will be a few more attempts until awareness comes.
Well, the general conclusion. Do not rush to show the customer prototypes. It is better to pay more attention to the scenarios of user interaction with the system, roles, rights, expectations. Let the customer himself say that he wants to see what he likes. Immature sentences “let it be like on Twitter” often lead to false agreement.
I'm a fairly novice manager for projects that do not use a ready-made platform with a hard design. For the first time, I have to link up hundreds of potential users, a designer, a web developer, a developer of services and a database. Well, more precisely, "again." The first project has already been completed to the finish line and the first lessons have been learned.
Hopefully, the findings will be useful for beginners and continuing managers in what to expect from communicating with the first-time hired designer and the development team beginning to take shape.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/169747/
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