How to work with designers

This is a translation of an interesting article about designers and their work principles How to Work with Designers .

That designers understand you, speak not about indicators, but about users

Most often, the meaning does not change much. For example, you are talking about an increase in the conversion of registrations of site visitors by X%. In other words, you want to simplify the registration procedure for users. It seems that we are talking about the same thing, but said in different words. Designers will better accept the second option, because they are usually closer to users.
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Other examples of such “translations”:

• Can we increase the clickability of this button? → How can we make sure that the user knows about a new feature that is easy to use?
• It is necessary that these changes do not worsen the indicators → It is necessary to make sure that these changes do not cause inconvenience to users.
• Let's increase the viral odds → Let's encourage users who share this content with their friends.

Designers are different

Yes, designers are different from fellow programmers, managers, engineers, because design covers a lot at once, including:

• Visual design: typography, color scheme, structure and everything else that is responsible for the visual design.
• Interaction: easy navigation, accessibility of the site for users, the impact of visual effects on the behavior of visitors, etc.
• The objectives of the product: Does the design cope with its task? Do users have a clear idea of ​​the product?

Each of the parts covers a very large area, so some designers are good at visual design, but they don’t understand how it should interact with the user. Therefore, a good designer should understand and navigate in all three components. In addition, the designer is different to the designer - if you replace one good with another at the same level, then the result of the work is likely to be different, because the design is a subjective thing.

A more experienced designer can handle more abstract tasks.

Here are examples of thinking designers of different levels:

• Designer Lvl 1: develop a form that allows users to edit their profile.
• Designer Lvl 2: develop a better user interface for editing a profile.
• Designer Lvl 3 (broad vision): develop a system for editing everything - profiles, posts, settings, etc.
• Designer Lvl 3 (deep vision): make users want to update their profiles.
• Designer Lvl 4: develop solutions to increase the reliability of profiles on the site.
• Designer Lvl 5: identify the main tasks and problems of the product and create ways to solve them.

An experienced designer will be able to generate better ideas if he understands the product and recognizes his development strategy, as well as if he performs more complex tasks. Conversely, if he solves minor problems and cannot influence the course of development of the product as a whole, then the designer will not be able to fully reveal himself.

The more time a designer spends with other designers, the better.

One of the best ways to improve work and increase designer skills is to get feedback from other designers. Constructive criticism is always useful, you can look at the result with a close look and try to improve the product. Therefore, the designer should participate in the discussion at the initial stages of the project, preferably together with other designers. Also, the designer needs to delve into the essence of the development process in order to better understand the mechanisms and principles of the project.

What designers value and strive for is difficult to measure.

We can give a simple example: we all understand that disorder, wherever it is, is bad. But how to determine when the mess is too much? It is impossible to do this, because each person can have his own definition of disorder. So in the work of the designer. In addition, it is made up of many small, seemingly inconspicuous pieces. However, if we treat each small part of the work without proper attention, all these pieces will form into not very high-quality results.

Designers often overestimate the experience of one person and at the same time underestimate the experience of many people. At the same time, they are sometimes based on their preferences, and not on the interests of the target audience. Of course, not every designer can be said that way.

The path to the designer's heart is through attention to detail.

The easiest way to please the designer is to treat the fine details of his work with respect. For example, create a pixel layout in a pixel. The designer will be just happy. Any designer likes to work with programmers, layout designers and managers who not only appreciate his work, but also have a taste and general ideas about design. And of course, it is easy to find a common language with the designer, if your ideas about the project and understanding of the development strategy are similar.